...The market for lower end cameras is evaporating. In the “good old days “, it was the Rebel cameras that drove sales, but are those days ending?
I see it a little differently.The market for lower end cameras is definitely shrinking, but I am not sure it is evaporating. There are still a lot of people out there who aspire to an interchangeable lens camera. Most prefer a DSLR, which they consider to be a "real" camera. But in time, the demand for mirrorless could eventually outpace DSLRs, but I think it is too early to know for sure.
My sense is that interchangeable lens camera sales will eventually settle in to about the same percentage of the population that owned these cameras prior to the digital revolution. This was certainly enough to support a robust amateur market, but not at the volume and pace that we became used to over the past 15 years or so. That likely means a slower pace of innovation and a lengthening of time between major upgrades. But, at the same time, the technology is maturing, so it is only natural that the pace of innovation will slow.
I'm not sure how Canon and Nikon will handle this. Will we see annual or biennial releases of new models with slight modifications, or will we see updates once or twice a decade that have major changes?