1. Prices are down(yes, lower down your guns). I'm not talking about CPUs or GPUs but embedded products. It's absolutely mind blowing that you can get the computational power of a mid-90's computer with the size of a coin for just a few bucks. Same goes for sensors, transceivers, motors and communication modules.
2. 3D printing has come a long way, also dirt cheap and easily accessible to people and is yet another game changer for prototyping. Essentially you can have a functional part in your hands in a day.
3. With works towards lowering carbon footprint(further amplified by inflation), smart devices with low footprint will become more popular-anything which will lower costs. It may sound counter intuitive at first glance but you can imagine how a smart home/office/factory/store/restaurant/anything could be more efficient if power consumption is managed in the most efficient way possible and likely far better than you ever could.
4. Open firmware and hardware is going to be a game changer in another area which seemed completely out of reach just a few years ago - space exploration. Even there, the prices have dropped massively. And there's one more thing when it comes to space exploration: I know that people are really on both extremes when it comes to opinions on Elon Musk but here are my thoughts: ignore what he says and pay attention to what he does. I'm not entirely sure that he's right on electric cars and I suspect that he might not be on the winning side if synthetic fuels become widely available. The one thing which makes me sway towards them are the billions Porsche is pouring into research in that area and credit where it's due: they have been right throughout the entirety of the automotive history.
5. Industrial purposes. Again looking at what Elon Musk is doing - I think he is giving us a glimpse of what Industrial revolution 2.0 might look like. And again something which was further fueled by the pandemic.
The one thing that I see truly missing in the picture is cheap, fast and easy way to make PCB prototypes - that is still an expensive and complicated endeavor. Or at least I am not aware of a cheap and efficient way to do this. I've personally gone as far as trying to figure out a way to use conductive paint for that purpose. With 0 success so far I'm afraid.