ETH is expensive but there are other "cheaper" blockchains compatible with ETH whose "gas" price is negligible. You can also deploy for free on the "testnet"
A major reason why those blockchains have lower fees is because speculators have not driven up their token price. Unless there is some fundamental reason why the fees will stay low, you've got a time bomb on your hands as soon as people decide that this blockchain is a major speculation vehicle.
This is an interesting topic that I feel like doesn't get discussed often. Vitalik Buterin posted today about Ethereum's expensive gas fees and the reasoning for it. It boiled down to decentralization vs. more operations per block. Blockchains like Algorand and Solana have large block sizes, so they can keep fees low per block (which they both do a very good job of doing so far, although exactly how cheap they'd be with Ethereum's adoption numbers is still uncertain). Tezos has had more adoptions through NFTs and they've managed to keep transaction fees low as well (although arguably running a Tezos node now requires better hardware specs than it did a few years ago). The tradeoff is that beefy hardware is needed to run a node, which hurts decentralization, as the average participant without deep pockets can't compete. This is part of why Ethereum has high gas costs.
Or run your own private chain/node for trying things out.
Recently I've been working at converting an existing web business to web3 (at least my interpretation of web3), with the goal of making it all decentralized. My impression at this point is that it's mostly possible but not all that practical.
It might make more sense if I reimagine what the business is, which is part of my exploration here.