You'll be told its the RAM price, but Amazon can deliver qty 1 of an equivalent speed ram (its technically slightly faster than DDR4 but much slower than DDR5) to my door tomorrow morning with sales tax for about $120. No one can explain why the other parts cost about $300. Note that "about $300" will buy you a 24 core Intel Ultra 7, the Amazon model is $350 because its unlocked for overclocking for those who don't think 24 cores at 3.7 GHz is fast enough. I'm sure the RasPi is much faster LOL.

You'll be told its the price of PCBs and chips, but again, the same company can deliver a box of three Xiao brand ESP32 dev boards to my door tomorrow morning for a hair over $20 including tax and shipping and handling.

You'll be told its a temporary supply chain disruption until you remember they've been pulling that scam for some years now, and as long as people fall for it and throw money at them, they'll keep pushing it.

The problem is they sold out to the hardcover textbook manufacturer business model. Take the head of the EE dept out for dinner and box seats at last night's sportsball game, suspiciously the EE department syllabus now says you need to buy it or else, and the seller says now that its a mandatory purchase "will pay anything for an education" in response they will charge "anything" which apparently is $385. See also Boomers and "will pay anything for medical care" well they know that and wait until you see the bill LOL. Also see real estate bubbles.

I don't see why they don't raise the price to that of an Apple Neo laptop. Its the same market and business model, pay what we ask or die uneducated and unemployed under a freeway overpass. Don't you want your kids to learn STEM and be successful? Well that'll be $385. Its the new "World Book Encyclopedia" scam.