Obviously the flashlight battery has a different literal utilization profile.
Maybe I could have said a car battery (gas powered or diesel, not electric or hybrid).
It’ll stick it out for a decade or more sometimes, but eventually gets too weak for what it is needed for. (Part of the price paid here is in buying a battery that is stronger than necessary up front.)
I believe a free enough market will drive a kind of evolution by pull, if there is an evolution path. Each improvement will open up some use that was not practical before.
Actually I thought the flashlight battery was a good analogy for the present use profile that the photovoltaic cell presently naturally fits.
In a free market the photovoltaic cell can not compete on its own against electric utilities for supplying power to consumers and industry. It in the real world the photovoltaic cell is an occasional use device. Its real consumers are campers and preppers.