I’ve found this to be the case for most of the time Raspberry Pis have been around. The cost proposition has always relied on using other components people have

I’ve found this to be the case for most of the time Raspberry Pis have been around. The cost proposition has always relied on using other components people have “lying around”, like the power adapter, SD card, etc. However as the power quality requirements have gone up for each Pi release, old AC adapters can’t be used anymore, SD cards need to be better quality to handle the writes, and you want a case for it, etc. From my perspective you’ve always been looking at close to $100 to get everything you need for it to be useful.