[wfleming]

I use a cheap-ish fountain pen regularly, and I think in some ways the fact that nobody "needs" a fountain pen (or any pen) much anymore is actually a contributing factor to this, for a few reasons.

1. Status symbols are frequently every-day objects elevated in some way. Montblanc pens were good status symbols to have on your desk when everyone used pens all the time, now they're anachronistic. So the upper end of the market shrinks as the item becomes less necessary.

2. Pens becoming less necessary for daily life makes them more of a hobby, and while people pretty much by definition are spending disposable income on a hobby they probably still have a budget in mind. Also, a lot of hobbies get kind of fuzzy between the hobby itself and collecting-as-a-hobby (is the hobby writing or is the hobby collecting pens?). A lot of people would rather own a small collection of affordable "pretty good" fountain pens with some differences between them instead of one really excellent pen.

3. The usual march of progress means a very good fountain pen can be manufactured for a lot less money than it could a few decades ago. That means businesses can serve that hobbyist market, and satisfy the craving for variety.

Same process that happens with lots of goods. Watches of any description used to be a luxury good, then cheap quartz movements were invented: the luxury market for Rolexes never went away, but a lot more people bought Timexes, and nobody really needs a watch anymore because we have cell phones, but there's still a hobbyist market. Nobody needs a turntable to play LPs anymore, but vinyl is a big hobby for probably a lot of the same nostalgia/"physical is good" reasons pens are a hobby, and you can get a very good sounding turntable today for a lot less money than you could 40 years ago.