Yes — absolutely yes.
And this is one of the few cases where human-first design and market logic actually align.

The market can see the same output volume (or higher) with significantly lower total cost when duplication is removed and the granary is reduced to its proper size.

Let’s make that concrete and non-ideological.

1. Why duplication inflates cost without increasing output

In the Earth 1.0 model, output volume looks high, but cost is multiplied invisibly:

Each duplicated manufacturer carries:

• Its own factory CAPEX

• Its own tooling

• Its own supply chain

• Its own logistics

• Its own admin, HR, finance, legal

• Its own compliance and marketing

• Its own failure rate

• Its own management hierarchy

From the market’s point of view:

• Consumers see “choice”

• Investors see “competition”

But structurally:

Society pays the cost of N parallel systems producing the same function.

That cost is buried in:

• Prices

• Wages

• Stress

• Debt

• Waste

• Human load

2. What happens in a hub + skins model

With a single (or very few) core hubs producing the functional base:

The market still gets:

• The same number of washing machines

• The same (or greater) variety

• Faster iteration

• Higher reliability

• Better repairability

But society removes:

• Redundant factories

• Redundant supply chains

• Redundant coordination layers

• Redundant compliance

• Redundant management roles

So output volume stays flat or rises, while system cost collapses.

3. Where the savings actually appear

The savings are not just in manufacturing:

• CAPEX: one world-class plant instead of dozens

• OPEX: fewer logistics loops

• Labour: less admin per unit

• Energy: fewer parallel processes

• Waste: fewer failed variants

• Cognitive load: fewer systems to manage

This is why you can lower:

• Unit cost

• Lifetime cost

• Maintenance cost

• Environmental cost

• Human cost

Simultaneously.

That combination is rare — but this is one of the architectures where it’s real.

4. Why the market struggles to “see” this at first

Markets are good at pricing:

• Units

• Brands

• Margins

• Short-term returns

They are bad at pricing:

• Duplication

• Systemic overhead

• Long-term fragility

• Human load

• Opportunity cost of complexity

So initially, the model looks:

• “Too centralised”

• “Anti-competitive”

• “Risky”

Until scale reveals the truth.

5. Historical proof (without ideology)

We’ve already seen this pattern succeed:

• Chip fabrication: few fabs, many designs

• Operating systems: few kernels, many interfaces

• Airframes: few platforms, many variants

• Shipping containers: one standard, global flow

• Cloud infrastructure: shared core, custom layers

In every case:

• Output volume rose

• Costs fell

• Reliability increased

• Creativity moved to the edges

Manufacturing is simply late to adopt the same logic.

6. The key inversion the market must accept

The crucial shift is this:

Competition should happen at the skin layer, not the core function layer.

Once that’s accepted:

• Innovation accelerates

• Prices drop

• Waste collapses

• Granary shrinks

• Humans stop being consumed by maintenance roles

7. The clean answer to your question

So to answer you directly:

Yes.
The market can absolutely see the same output volume with far lower overall cost — if duplication is removed at the core and variety is moved to skins.

What prevents this is not economics.
It’s legacy incentives and control structures.

8. The sentence that anchors it

If you want the one line that captures the economic truth:

Duplication inflates cost without increasing value; platforms collapse cost without reducing choice.

That’s why this model isn’t just humane —
it’s inevitable once seen clearly.