How long will it have to take for people to realize that this tendency to only ever care for a virtual customer that's an average of all customers across all characteristics is in fact a market failure?

Looking at Apple's sales and customer satisfaction ratings, I'm not quite sure you understand what the term Market Failure means.

Actually I think they fully understand it. "Market failure" does not mean that a company fails to sell something. Here's the definition:

> Market failure is the economic situation defined by an inefficient distribution of goods and services in the free market...In traditional microeconomics, this is shown as a steady state disequilibrium in which the quantity supplied does not equal the quantity demanded.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketfailure.asp

GP claimed there are demands not being met, because suppliers make more money selling to a "virtual customer that's an average of all customers across all characteristics." If that's correct, arguably it is a market failure, and that's consistent with those suppliers making lots of money selling to that average customer.

So by that standard, any market situation in which a vendor makes high profit margins on a product in high demand would be a market failure. I really don’t think that’s what it means. The limited supply and subsequent high prices of Bugattis isn’t a market failure.

It seems to me it’s more like cases where poor infrastructure prevents distribution, or excessive regulation obstructs trade, preventing vendors and purchasers from linking up. That’s a problem on both sides. It’s an actual failure of the market itself.

As long as it remains a market success. It’s not a market failure yet. I think all these little slights pile up to make it collapse, but I’ve been waiting 30 years and it seems to be getting worse in that more companies are getting huger by meeting the 95% at the expense of the 5%.