Maybe that is the answer to how things are supposed to work if AI replaces everyone and no one can afford to buy their stuff.

Things being too cheap allows money to pool at the bottom in little people's hands in the forms of things like "their homes" and "their computers" and "their cars".

You don't really want billions in computing hardware (say) being stashed down there in inefficient, illiquid physical form, you want it in a datacentre where it can be leveraged, traded, used as security, etc. If it has to be physically held down there, ideally it should be expensive, leased and have a short lifespan. The higher echelons seem apparently to think they can drive economic activity by cycling money at a higher level amongst themselves rather than looping in actual people.

This exact price jump seems largely like a shock rather then a slow squeeze, but I think seeing some kind of reversal of the unique 20th century "life gets better/cheaper/easier every generation".