Are you fed up with the ever increasing cost of Canon gear?

tkbslc wrote:

Speaking of reality, I think some people may need to face reality that brand new L lenses and cutting edge FF cameras may not fit in their budget. There's no shame in running a crop system or using older EF lenses or even going with a DSLR. There are plenty of ways to enjoy photography for low cost in 2021. Demanding that a brand new pro FF system be "affordable" is probably not realistic.

It is a different question of whether you are starting out or already have equipment.

1. Canon does not have a Mirrorless APS-C in the R mount, and I don't expect them to keep supporting the M-mount for very long. They may not kill the M-mount, but it looks like they will let it die from benign neglect. Even the rumored R7 might have been aimed at the high end for the BIF and similar applications. 
2. In #1, I am not saying to get out of the M-series, but I would not start into it today as a consumer. That seems to be the consensus of many "influencers" and even if it is not true, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
3. Per #1 and #2, I think your argument holds better for Sony than Canon. 
4. The whole APS-C was in a time when a full-frame sensor was ridiculously expensive (I'm guessing $500 to $1000 for the sensor alone).  Additionally, the DSLR was beginning, and the Digital camera market was growing by leaps and bounds. The volumes of the APS-C DSLRs could justify independent lens development and thus EF-S lenses.  It is not clear to me (and others I have read/listened to) that the market allows crop sensor R lens. 

The result is if you have an APS-C Canon DLSR with EF-S lenses and you don't want to spend at least $2,000, you probably need to hang on for a few years. You probably don't want to buy a lot of new equipment other than perhaps a camera and maybe pick up some used lenses.

I lived the APS-C to R changeover myself, having shot APS-C for 20 years. My full-frame lenses were old and obsolete, and I couldn't see using EF-S lenses on the RP or R5. But then I was willing to drop a heck of a lot more than $2K on a bunch of L-lenses (plus the RF24-240).  All I got from "staying with Canon" was my familiarity with  Canon equipment when all was said and done. Nothing I owned pre-R is in my bag today.  I was not going to buy new or used EF lenses for my new camera.  On a financial basis, there was no advantage and probably considerable extra cost in staying with Canon.

If you are in the M-series and don't want to speed about $2,000, you just hang tight and see what happens.

From what I see, it is a bit hard for someone to start with Canon today. I'm not talking about someone that already knows many of the  EF lenses, but the more average person wanting to get into better photography. To someone shopping today, the Canon DSLR and M lines look like dead ends. With the R-series, why buy into a new system and then use old lenses that you have to adapt?

Canon is gradually getting "consumer" lenses out there, with the RF100-400 filling one important slot. However, you are still talking needed to speed about $2K to have a nice consumer "kit" (camera, two zooms, and maybe a consumer prime).