Professionals cannot compete with low-ball amateurs on price or quality.
-40hz
I'd argue that's the actual mindset that makes it frustrating to professionals. They can't compete on price, but they *can* compete on quality. And they *can* compete on service. It's just an expectation of compensation that makes it harder, and they have to look at the long game.
As you said, its happened before and will happen again. In many cases, it's just that the professionals have become used to an inflated value of the product.
Photography - at one point, there was an inflated photography market out there- when you needed darkrooms and had to have a certain level of expertise that was not easy to come across to develop your images well. You also had to get the *shot* right- after shoot processing was unknown. And charging was made on the basis of it being an artisan skill with limited a knowledge pool.
Now, photographers bemoan the mom-tographer, i.e. the stay at home mom who received the DSLR and learned a bit of photoshop and has the inroads into their childrens' parents to take the images and lowball the pricing. What's really the problem is that they were still charging premium prices for something that had been made easier. Talent and skill will tell in the end. But the difference in the A-grade and B-grade and C-grade cannot be so much that quality no longer matters. Which means an adjustment.
And, on another point, in the so-called B-grade and C-grade market, there are those gems that are actually A-grade, but would have never come to the attention of an A-grade publisher. The consumers just have to become more discerning and educated, and the critics have to become less commercial and full of hyperbole in their reviews and more honest.
Quality will always tell once the market knows to look. Just like with crowdfunding, the average consumer has to become more discerning and more willing to put in the effort necessary to see the signs and pick the good over the dross.
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