I’ve wondered about a temporal trend. My feeling is that it has gotten more negative over the last 10 years. Could the OP run the analysis for each year and see if there are trends?
Timing seems to be about the same (but just in production now). But tariffs/taxes were 55% of merchandise cost. DHL is expensive too, $52 for 10 boards (shipping to Cali). I haven’t used OSHPark.
I’m building A2Fusion [1], a dual RP2350 expansion board for the Apple II to provide, storage, hdmi video and other functions in one card. The PoC is currently a big mess of wires. Waiting on JLCPCB for first prototype boards.
1977 Apple ][ Introductory price US$1,298 (equivalent to $6,270 in 2022)
I think folks are missing the point that this is the first Pro version. Likely targeted at developers and early adopters. I’m sure there will be an Air/Lite/etc version that cost reduces overtime.
Now that the MacBook Neo has an A18, I wonder if you could get MacOS running on an iPhone? :)