I didn't downvote... but if you're being downvoted it's probably for ignoring the flywheel effect needed to scale novel tech in the market.
Yes e-ink has high wastage, and yes demand is low, but having had a strong arming expensive patent holder didn't help the situation. The patents are actually expiring/expired but at some point the damage is already done.
A great corollarly to e-ink is 3d printers: they were very expensive, very low volume products that needed to recoup expensive development costs... but when the 200 lbs gorilla sitting on the market in the form of patents started to die down, a lot more players start to iterate, which unlocked advancements, which made things cheaper and more accessible, which improved demand, which then incentivized more advancements... and now we have $400 printers that outperform $10,000 printers from not that long ago.
Most display tech starts high wastage, low demand. Patents aren't a guaranteed death, but e-ink was just a bit too far off the path for absolutely required innovations to overcome the added resistance. In the mean time other technologies got better: sunlight performance of non-eink displays has improved dramatically for example.
Now the moment has probably passed and e-ink is doomed to stay a niche sideline product as a result.