Rembrandt, like most of the "old masters" in art, ran a studio that employed many painters. He put his name on a lot of things he didn't paint entirely by himself. It's not quite the same as printing, but the idea that he was essentially running a factory isn't entirely wrong.
Well, it's true. If you never buy anything you never get scammed. And I find the emulated experience is just as good these days on top of it. But assuming you are going to start shelling out you should be able to know what you're buying.
I mean why spend money on anything not directly related to food, shelter, and health? Why spend extra to have aesthetically pleasing shelter rather than concrete blocks?
People buy what they want to buy. You criticize this and I’ll criticize that.
And what of spending money on stuff just because you enjoy collecting? From my limited knowledge, it seems like most buyers are motivated by that to at least some extent.
If it's something you enjoy collecting on its merit, go ahead. If it's something you enjoy collecting because it's rare, that speaks to a subtly unhealthy motivation of wanting to have something that other people don't have. Put it this way: if other people doing well in your hobby makes you sad rather than happy, it's not a good hobby.
The issue with trying to pump prices is that it creates a speculative market that drives most buyers out of the market. We see a similar situation in the PS5 space where demand still outstrips supply and scalpers are wildly profitable.
FPGA is really just emulation with a lower latency though. It isn't 'actual hardware' in the sense that 'actual' would mean 'original' or even 'identical to the original', it's just a software-defined-hardware implementation instead of a purely software one.
Emulation is great today, in some ways even superior to the original. It is, unfortunately, not 100% perfect for some systems yet though and while it has mechanisms to deal with the inevitable extra latency it is always there.
Then there's the Everdrive and various ODEs which are a huge boon to the hobby, not only allowing arbitrary games to be played without original media but also removing a common point of failure with the latter. Sadly these are not 100% either, but they're close.
Honestly, for my money, the only reason to own real physical original games these days is sentiment or bragging rights. Somehow owning a boxed and sealed copy of any ultracommon game just doesn't strike me as scratching either itch regardless of condition.