Pretty much, the DE0 which most of the retro fpga computers rely on, was cheap, but it is almost impossible to find at decent prices anymore, even the non-mains

Pretty much, the DE0 which most of the retro fpga computers rely on, was cheap, but it is almost impossible to find at decent prices anymore, even the non-mainstream FPGA boards (WaveShare, etc) have jumped in price massively, even though they're really pretty useless for retro computing use unless you're willing to reinvent the entire universe to bake an apple pie.