A great video, even if folks disagree on the actual ROT, it details what funding is needed to get a project off the ground and what that markup entails, this is fairly common for the consumer market space. Not so sure what it is these days in T&M. It should give those wanting to crowd fund projects some pause to ponder. Direct to consumer selling, aka on-line sales, have changed somewhat the middle man issues like distributors, as it was far worse before the Internet.
E.g. if we assume 2.5 is true, then consider the MRSP $US400 of the Rigol 1054Z, means it costs ~ $160 for Rigol.
There are other complex side issues and benefits for bare bones pricing for profit to be reduced even more, like the concept of loss leaders or publicity, but Dave demos see how small changes in additional charges can result in drastic profit reduction and the best way to hedge against more profit erosion depends on the money you need to survive, and in 2.5 margin ecosystem, volume selling is key.
Now whether the widget for this year is really better than last years or the makers reduce quality to insure failures after X years, so the seller can sell more to earn more, I leave the moral dilemma to the readers; particularly in the consumer space.
You need not play such a game. As another said, a niche market can be charged what the market will bare. For aerospace markup is typically >1000x of cost, built to order, have little to no inventory, buyers even pay development costs like 'crowd funding' which is built into the product cost, so there is less capital risk. In military spending, there is little no competition just government oversight. An EE would be best to enter such fields as a career and stay away from anything that is civilian or consumer focused. Devices are often kept and used for decades. Medical devices have price pressure as its mostly for civilian use, more than military but less stressful than consumer.
AFAIK some niche T&M instruments, like the top end DSOs, the 3458a DMM, the Fluke 8508a DMM etc., are built to order and cost what the market will bare. However, in the HP days of Bill and Dave T&M was like entirely driven by 'market will bear' scientific instrumentation costs, but these days a portion of catalogs acts like a consumer product due to widespread competition and ease of development: DMM, DSO, clamp meters, etc.