Your last paragraph in your last post hits the nail in the head...

Your last paragraph in your last post hits the nail in the head @Propunter2.
If you had invested many millions of dollars developing massive evaporation ponds that is far from environmentally friendly, that's process is to basically evaporate water in a desert, and also loosing around half of the product you are chasing, whilst taking 12-24 months to evaporate and retrieve the product (relying on the sun), only to have some new kid on the block come in with new technology that has a miniature footprint compared to ponds, that uses minimal water from the desert, that captures almost all the targeted product, produces a better quality end product and all in a matter of hours.
that alone would possibly provide incentives for these old pond producers to attack and undermine the new kid. At some point, environmental concerns will demand change and the ponds will go the way of the dinosaurs, leaving the pond processors to adapt or perish.