[Mathnerd314]

> the gaming brands push the marketing numbers up and up.

There is a trend in the opposite direction, where people read books and such on low-fps e-ink displays. It's true that people complain they are expensive and the low fps makes it useless for a lot of tasks, but there is still a market because the "like paper" display is so readable. I think that makes it clear that people have a variety of needs. Your logic is something like trickle-down economics - it is certainly important to continue doing research into displays but this doesn't necessarily translate into cheaper panels. I would say the main reason you can get a cheap $100 monitor now that is the equivalent of a $700 CRT from 30 years ago is economy of scale. The manufacturing process is more automated and streamlined with fewer assembly steps, and there are many competing manufacturers.

Meanwhile 240hz is justifiable even for non-gaming, e.g. https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/gaming-monitors/tcl-de... who says he noticed the benefits of 240hz just browsing and scrolling.