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If all these people who hate developers would just listen to one earnings call, they all say increased supply is a financial threat, I am begging you to Know Your Enemy just a tiny fucking bit.

That’s not the mechanism for lowering rent. Landlords charge as much rent as they can. If it’s cheaper to build, they pocket more profit. However, lower building costs enable more building. Homes that wouldn’t have made a profit are now profitable & get built. This puts downward pressure on rents.

I think it's two sides of the same coin? 'Can still be built even with lower rents' is really important to moving prices down, and 'still makes a profit with lower rents' means it can be built?

Yes, we just need to be careful not to imply landlords will lower prices out of the goodness of their hearts just because they can still make a profit at those lower rents. They will only lower rents when a competitive market forces them to.

Understanding that landlords do not price units (residential, commercial or industrial) to maximize profit is essential here. Profit doesn't come into play at all when pricing. They aim to maximize RevPAR (or similar): Revenue per unit.