Yes, we know that floppy disks and drives will wear out, and they have few if any sources for new repair parts. So the fact that the system is still more or less working today doesn't mean it isn't doomed and needs to be replaced before experiencing a catastrophic unrecoverable failure.

Maybe. The problem is that you don't want to have to deal with that maybe in some applications.

40 years would be a maybe, 20 can be guaranteed by buying existing stock.

Even 8 inch floppies + drives are still available and those got abandoned a decade before 5.25” let alone 3.5” disks.

Why hasn’t someone come along to manufacture and sell floppy’s to these industries for $15 each? Or even $50?

Seems the market has demand, at least in the mid-term.

1. There are still some (but few) new old-stock floppies in existence. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/floppy-disk-still-has-life

2. There are floppy emulators that replicate the functionality of floppy drives with flash

3. The above two probably absorb all of the demand today, but even if they didn't, the volume is so low that fixed manufacturing costs per unit could likely push unit prices well beyond even $50. The tooling for factories often costs millions and unless you are selling in high volume, you will have quite a high fixed cost per unit.

Because it wouldn't be profitable? How many do you think they could sell to a dying market, and what would those manufacturing costs be? What experts could you tap who know this space? they are all gone

The article says it will take (at least) 4 years just to roll it out. 20 years isn't much... legroom.

The point is it’s enough legroom to be reasonably cautious in the rollout rather than needing to get a big contractor to do a major and therefore expensive push.