They were and Germany was actually going in that direction, but it took the manufacturing scale of China to create an incentive to introduce the hundreds of minor changes necessary to get costs down.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/02/18/chinas-cheap-electric...
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:5_Largest_Producers_...
Right around that time Germany's solar boom started in earnest:
https://www.statista.com/chart/2397/solar-power-made-massive...
Which was powered largely by Chinese panels. Since we can't have nice things, tariffs were imposed:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_13_...