Inflation and government over-spending is harming everyone. Even SpaceX had to raise their prices of a Falcon 9 launch from $62 million to $67 million. Fuel and shipping costs, raw materials, and of course labor (if you can find people to work) are all adding up to 7% (maybe more) inflation. I noted audio speakers jumped 20% at the first of the year, some by more.
It is the price of admission if you want to get the best you can for whatever budget you set.
The only good thing is that technology continues to improve. Speakers today at any price sound better than similarly valued speakers from 20 years ago. And integrated circuits, discrete components, etc., have a much higher quality as well.
So, at the end of the day, we live in whatever times we live in and made our choices based on price, performance, and our budgets. And we can hope some manufacturers will occasionally run a few "specials".
As others note in the high end, that may mean buying lightly used and well cared for products to get the most bang for your bucks.
I do hate it. I was all set to buy some new speakers instead of tackling the job of replacing the crossovers (capacitors) in my vintage ones, but now, that job is looking more palatable and more logical and saving the money for a better DAC.
