davidkind

Warby Parker worked in the DTC space because they received an inordinate amount of PR which drives down customer acquisition cost due to relatively cheap traffic. If that goes away, so does much of their business and any hope of profitability. Much like the rest of the brands mentioned.

Broken, yes. But not by a monopolistic leader. Cheap glasses have always been around. The problem is people want to use their insurance provided by their employer. Most people use vision insurance to buy glasses. Vision insurance is what is broken (it's not actual "insurance" but more of a bad deal savings plan and should be dismantled). Vision insurance requires prices to be increased in order to discount under the plans for an illusion of price discounting. So if you have insurance, you'd probably pay a reasonable and similar price for similar quality to Warby Parker. If you don't have insurance, then you'd pay more.