My intial assumption was that fewer people eating meat means lower prices because of a larger supply for lower demand. But of course it might mean fewers ranchers and companies investing in livestock in the first place because fewer expect to make a profit on it. What’s the market analysis say to anyone familiar with it?
If a lot of people suddenly stopped consuming anything there would be a drop in price. The producers don’t have time to adapt.
One person per day for a year stopping consuming something will make no difference.
A large percent of the population consuming less may make it more expensive.
When it comes to agriculture it’s harder to predict. Not all land is suitable for soy beans and not all land is suitable for cattle.
When taken to extreme, the pieces could also rise.
Imagine that meat demand drops gradually over a few decades, and meat production adapts to it. As a result, the whole industry begins to lose the economies of scale. After a century of this kind of development, meat is produced by a handful of small farms, where the operational costs per mass unit of meat produced are very high. If that ever happens, meat would become a special ingredient most people don’t want. Those few who still do want it, are willing to pay absurd prices for it.
That’s exactly what has already happened with physical media for audio and video.
This is generally correct, but with a somewhat-rare caveat. If the product was priced as the sum of variable costs (eg unit cost of fuel to yield 1 kWh of electricity) and of fixed costs (eg price to build a power generating station that will last for 20 years), then a reduction in consumption can actually cause an increase in per-unit costs for the remaining consumers.
This is precisely what is playing out in California with the incumbent electricity provider, PG&E. For arcane reasons, their regulated monopoly allows them to undertake large-scale construction projects, with a guaranteed rate of return (aka fixed cost) passed onto consumers. But since solar installations have smashed even the most optimistic expectations, demand for fossil fuels generation is slowing. But because a power plant running at 50% output still needs to pay off 100% of its loan payments, PG&E is using the situation to try to hike consumer rates even more. You know, to pay for those large projects that PG&E owns…
At the end of the day, non-solar consumers are being asked to shoulder more of the burden despite falling electricity demand (pre AI), but it’s not caused by solar early-adopters, but due to PG&E’s own greed and desire for guaranteed profit.
TL;DR: prices will usually go down when consumption goes down, unless a monopoly is trying to save their own skin. PG&E should be dissolved.
Man are PGE not the good guys…