Some folks might have missed that memory prices on the whole are up [1] 90% since Q4.

The memory used by the Pi 5 is up 700% [2]!

Raspberry Pi are working the issue by releasing new memory variants that are cheaper[2].

Edit: You can still walk into a Microcenter and get Pi 5 16GB for US $289!

1. https://au.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/

2. https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/a-new-3gb-raspberry-pi-4-fo...

The trouble is that the RAM chip on the Pi is a high density module that's going to have come under pressure from the datacenter buildouts.

An 8 GiB DIMM for a desktop or server is using 8x 1 GiB chips or 16x 512 MiB chips (9/18 for ECC). An 8 GiB Pi uses a single 8 GiB chip. That's the same density as you would use for 128 GiB or larger sticks.

Microcenter doubled the price of the 500+ kit shortly after I bought one. Still $90 cheaper than Adafruit, unsurprisingly.

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>Raspberry Pi are working the issue by releasing new memory variants that are cheaper[2]

Raspberry Pi are working on the issue but letting you spend the same amount of money per GB, for fewer GB.