It most certainly comes across as “collaborative” when you say things like “the industry decided”. And I moved no goals…I used “monolithic” as a synonym.
There is a difference between “profit dollars” and “profitable”. What you are referring to is “profit dollars”. Margin is irrelevant as it is just a %. I have noted in the past that more expensive bikes tend to produce more profit dollars but have a lower margin.
The disc brake analogy is absolutely a useful analogy as it illustrates how suppliers respond to consumer demand / preferences. I made that very clear in an earlier response.
Again, see the disc brake analogy (or even the Biopace one)…all the marketing in the world is not going to get consumers to buy products they don’t want…at least not long term. I can almost certainly guarantee that no suppliers are saying “Yeah, we know consumers really want alloy frames, but we are going to force them to buy carbon ones.” I’ll ask again, if Cannondale had no problem selling CAAD bikes with Ultegra, why did they stop? Especially since they would have a clearly differentiated product vs the competition, establishing a unique place in the market where they could dominate?