First of all, I'm no expert (at all, I stay firmly on the software side of things) but here's my 2c:

I'm going to guess that when PCBs were introduced, you couldn't get them for a couple of dollars from China either.

These kind of things tend to become cheaper over time, as manufacturing, competition (newer or competing components) and availability grows.

So I assume it's at least possible that at some point, a few decades from now, they're cheap :)