The reality is that's just how cheap commodity circuit construction is, and even small shops in the US sometimes approach that low cost, and we've been paying crazy markup on electronics for decades. That dirt cheap board is so profitable it is using air freight to get back to you. It is literally burning money just for convenience, yet that is the "cheap" option.

Electronics cost a lot to manufacture in the 70s, but is entirely automated now but for "reasons" we have only seen a small part of that savings.

When you buy the "Cheap" version on AliExpress, they are still making a healthy margin, yet Americans will happily buy the exact same product off Amazon for next day shipping for 10x the cost and think they are getting a "deal"

This extends to cars as well, with the F150 costing as little as $20k to build, even with "Expensive" very unionized and well compensated labor. The higher market trims only cost a little more to make but take in far higher profit margins. How much of China's supposedly "Subsidized" car price (as if the US doesn't do anything to subsidize cars) is just a lower profit margin?

Things should be way cheaper to western consumers. Where does all that extra money go? "Marketing and administration", basically bloated executive suites, bloated middle management, and the pockets of Meta, Google, AWS, and Apple. Oh gee, those exact companies seem absurdly wealthy and are basically responsible for all economic growth in the past few decades.

> even small shops in the US sometimes approach that low cost

It's ludicrously expensive to ship things to and from the US though, and since they're now paying some insane markup because no-one understands what tariffs are the prices have got even sillier.