Bottom tier computers were more than $25.

They still are. They always have been.

Since the introduction of the OG Raspberry Pi, 14 years ago, there's been an ongoing cognitive problem wherein people look at the price of a brand new, never used SBC that can purchased from a reliable retail company.

Then they also look at the price of a used corpo PC (that is bigger, and noisier) that some rando in Iowa is selling on eBay.

And then they boldly compare the prices of the two things as if these details just don't exist.

But the details do exist. The details show that the two things are not the same. They can never be the same.

One is a shiny fresh apple that is free of blemishes, and the other is a bruised old grapefruit that someone has already started eating. They're both fruit, but they're very different things.