"Market wants very cheap programmer for very very cheap microcontroller."

No you are wrong. Market wants it free -

Raghu, "the market" do not give a hoot.

Do not misconstrue that using 100 chips per year makes anyone part of "the market"

If you want to be part of "the market" you need to buy, at least, 10.000 uCs per year and in a year or so that number will be much higher when the glut is removed.

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying here, what you are saying is definitely true for "the little guys", but nobody in the supply chain cares about those, thus they are not "the market"

Erik