The price of the underlying technology isn’t particularly relevant in Apple’s product or pricing strategy. And their past behaviour demonstrates that. The Apple Thunderbolt Display launched in 2011 at $999, and Apple were still selling the exact same screen five years later for the same price.
(And for what it’s worth, even back in 2016 when that display was discontinued there were rumours that Apple were working on a replacement.)
I think what you describe is exactly the problem. Apple could introduce a new XDR model at the current $6k price point and massively reduce the price of the current XDR to a point where it’s affordable for more people. That’s probably what most people want. But is that really realistic? Is there any precedent at all for Apple ever doing such a thing? I just think this is pure fantasy. The other option, as you say, is a new less-premium display at a more affordable price - and that’s what the rumours are. But what product is that? What would be an attractive offering at $3,000 (which is still well into the realm of crazy money for a monitor for almost everyone) that would compare favourably to the established offerings in the market, and is sufficiently differentiated from the XDR, and would sell in enough volume for it to make business sense. And I’m just not sure what that is.
On your point about cannibalising the XDR being disingenuous and “most people that purchase it need the color accuracy…”, you probably don’t actually have that data. But as I look around this and other forums, the indication is that most people buying the XDR are doing it because it’s a really good, large display, and because it’s an Apple display. Surely some buy it for color accuracy etc but not sure you can evidence that it’s “most”. And therefore cannibalisation is a potential issue. It’s tough to argue that a cheaper lesser Apple display wouldn’t eat into at least some XDR sales.
You finish by talking about a “mass market monitor”. A $3,000 monitor is very far from a mass market monitor.
