Race to the bottom....

yes this happened in my industry as well. When I started my business over 30 years ago, it was possible to sell an alarm system to a customer....residential or commercial, and make a nice return for labor and markup. Over the years, a lot of trunk slammers came in and were willing to work for much less, hoping to make up the difference on volume and higher monitoring (recurring revenue) fees. I saw install prices dropping drastically, especially in the residential markets. Then came the DIY stuff like simpli-safe, ring, and several others who destroyed whatever perceived value remained in the minds of residential customers for a full service, experienced, alarm installation company.

Then... covid hit and the whole stay home for 2 weeks thing which lasted well into a second year. I saw my phone literally stop ringing by the end of the second month into the shutdown. People were laid off, businesses considered "non-essential" forced to close.... literally no one had any money. The only good thing in this was I was literally only a few weeks away from full retirement age so I decided to pull the plug so to speak. I decided to retire and stop taking a paycheck and keep the company running on a part time basis. We still haven't recovered from the disaster that was wrought by means of that shutdown. A friend of mine in the business has also seen the same thing happen to his business. He's also at retirement and decided to do the same thing. We're both part time right now. I might do a couple of hours in the business one day a week. He spends a lot of time at the river relaxing. I literally spend more time just keeping the books and govt requirements than I do working productively.

From what I'm seeing in other industries.......

The race to the bottom is almost complete.

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www.herbhartley.com
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You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.