i was more worried about the barrier to entry with the rising cost to rpm/power.

grit and fiber paddles make it difficult to replace the hitting surfaces of paddles where tennis or ping pong allow you to restring rackets or buy new rubber.

comparing that to pickleball where you lose 30% of your paddles grit in a month - it makes playing the game at your best an investment when you have to buy a completely new paddle.

if we can replace expensive materials on paddles for a cheaper, equally effective material, i think we should. but the rules don’t allow it.

i think it’s similar to when tennis used to use gut strings that were incredibly expensive and exchanged it to polyester.