There will most definitely be folks voting with their wallets. We saw this with the previous 500PF and the wildlife community. This is magnified by the massive gap in pricing and the stellar specs on this lens. I’ve been ready to pull the trigger on a new RF supertele and was hoping those 400 and 600s were one-offs, but then they released similar 800 and 1200s. I don’t care if folks call me “not pro enough” because I’m complaining about pricing and lack of effort, you don’t just go rationally drop $20k on a lens just because it says Canon on it when there are better options and pricing out there. Nikon is making a fool of them right now. My $12,000 budgeted for a big white this year will be going to a Z9 and an 800PF, so that’s what voting looks like. I won’t be alone. Sad that some folks seem to think companies like Canon are too big to care and that leading the market means you don’t actually need to give a damn about your customers. That’s fine short-term, but catches up to you.
BTW, it’s frustrating not because we’re pearl clutching, but that you put so much time and energy into a system, learning it, perfecting it, and want it to succeed, but the company winds up taking advantage of the fact that you’re buying a system and they can sucker you out of more money with a lesser product because they’re betting you won’t leave. You wind up having to invest in several, which is a lot of work and money. Alas, some companies never change and that might be the lesson here.