It seems a few years ago there were great fears of a shortage.
Fears were overinflated.
People who use helium in an industrial situation (myself, for example) don't "fear" a "possible" helium shortage, we routinely deal with a very real and current helium shortage. Over the past 20 years, the price of helium, on contract, delivered to my loading dock, has increased by more than an order of magnitude. In addition to the greatly increased price there are delivery limits which cannot be exceeded.
Why not just fuse hydrogen to get helium ;-)