I'm surprised there isn't moralizing about the price point. I don't see why the US is so far behind in manufacturing efficiency. Everything seem to be 10-100x the cost of comparable Chinese goods, and US labor isn't paid anywhere close to 100x more.

Eh, it's pretty clear this price point isn't driven by manufacturing. It's driven by being a bespoke item with tons of R&D costs that need to be recouped.

If this turns into a significant market, I'm sure the cost will plummet.

Why would manufacturing cost come into play? Isn't it a given that a company will charge as much as they can get away with charging? Cost of labor and material I understood to only matter at the absolute bottom of a highly commoditized market e.g., bolts or capacitors or whatever. This is the only consumer ultrasonic knife (as far as I know) so they can charge whatever.

Is it that they cannot sell it for cheaper or that this price will maximize profits?

This episode of the Search Engine podcast goes into detail about that:

* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-puzzle-of-the-all-...