and that means potentially Bitcoin will become more expensive as it becomes scarcer, and more numerous
less?
That's what happened in the past and probably will happen again in the future. If it doesn't, the newcomers will get rekt by the low prices. Lots of people had their bitcoins when its price was above $40k and even $50k. Unless bitcoin does another big bull run and goes near $100k, these people won't be happy with their investments.
Personally I don't care about the price of bitcoin at all. What really matters is the network and it works pretty good. The NFT stuff ruined a little bit but despite that, btc is still the #1 crypto out there.