Originally Posted by
veganbikes
How does an average size of a person that happens to be forced into a binary justify a higher cost?
I have no idea what you're talking about here. Mass-produced products are made in discreet sizes specifically to reduce costs, usually dramatically. There's a reason we all buy mass-produced shoes these days instead of custom-made ones from cobblers. Products with higher prices will frequently have a wider range of sizes however. The bikes at Walmart do not come in the range of sizes that $2k-$5k bikes do.
Because an average of people have different sizes like everyone else on the planet does not mean something should cost more unless we are talking really big outliers like say a tall basketball player for instance or someone with some odd fit requirements.
People way outside that standard range don't buy enough to justify manufacturing something for them; the cost to produce the product for them will be more than the profit made from selling it to such a small customer base. That's why people with really odd sizes do have to get stuff custom-made or tailored.
Carbon can be made from tubes and lugs, like Colnago has done.
And it'll suffer in many ways compared to a one-piece frame. There's a reason almost no one makes them that way: cost, weight, mechanical properties, etc.
However I would rather have a nice steel or ti frame
Almost no one agrees with you, which is why carbon bikes sell like hotcakes and Ti bikes are a tiny niche. Titanium has some interesting properties, but the performance, strength-to-weight ratio, raw material cost, workability, etc. just don't compete well with carbon fibre made in Taiwan in gigantic volumes. Have you even looked at the prices of raw titanium stock (e.g. tubes)? It's little wonder no one makes bikes out of them, despite it seeming at one point 2 decades ago to be the "next big thing" for bike frames.