[jtagen]

I'm not sure I buy this. If someone can hack this together for <$100 at home, there should be plenty of supply to meet the demand.

$40 HDMI cables are an option (albeit a terrible one). For EVSEs, there really isn't a reasonably-priced alternative on the market right now.

[dylan604]

Most people aren't going to DIY something like this. Also, most people think that the price of a product should only be based on the price of its components, and possibly willing to accept a mark up on labor. However, the companies making a thing, whatever that thing might be, also has to make money to be able to pay the people that work for the company, the utility bills, and the rent. There's also the fact that the companies making a thing don't get the retail price you pay. They sell it at the wholesale rate to the vendors, so there's even less margin than the retail price suggest for the makers.

Just some things to keep in mind

[sokoloff]

In engineering university, I learned the “retail needs to be 5x the BoM* cost” rule of thumb. For a very high value or very high units product, maybe you could shave that to 4x or slightly less, but there are a lot of hands between the designed part and the retail consumer and none of them want to work for free.

* BoM - Bill of Materials (“what stuff goes into this thing?”)