Is the market working properly?

[UltimateWire]

I've played a couple of campaigns, each lasting roughly a century, and across different versions of the game I always see the same situation: supply exceeds demand in every market, prices keep falling, and they end up well below their starting levels.

Is the market actually working as intended? Why does this happen?

At first, I thought there might be something wrong with the market system, or that population growth would eventually correct the imbalance. But that doesn't seem to be the case. There's always an oversupply.

Under these circumstances, I find it rather unappealing to spend time learning how the market works and looking for opportunities to make money.

I've spent quite a few hours playing Victoria, which has a similar market system, and this doesn't happen there.