However, at Plethora (my company) and others like ReThink robotics, etc. are lowering the barriers to automation so that small entities (people / firms) are able to develop products - which will put competitive pressure on current firms - driving price down and/or features up.

Plethora does this by removing the setup costs of manufacturing so you can do short runs affordably and actually be "agile" in your production.

ReThink does it by making it easy to automate existing SMB production lines - meaning small firms can automate what they have or rapidly reconfigure with lower setup costs.