It's not that much considering people pay $100+ for cable/internet and/or >=$(15 * n) streaming services PER month. Some people might want faster transfer speeds or low latency. For the price of two or three months of internet and streaming/cable you get a very fast LAN if you so desire. If you don't need it then don't spend the money.
A single eero or Ubiquiti AP will be $150-300 depending on the exact capabilities, so if you're pricing out how to network your house I'd say the switch looks pretty good b
The UniFi U7 Lite is $99 and appears to be every bit as good as the more expensive gear unless you want 6GHz or need extra radios or have clients with more than two spatial streams.
minor nitpick: I wouldn't call it stagnating. They were artificially inflated.
as an aside: for pricing, 20 years ago unmanaged 1G-BaseT ethernet switches were $20/port. That's the region 10G-BaseT switches occupy right now if they use realtek chips. And multiple sources confirm the realtek switch can do full line rate on all ports simultaneiously with a normal 1500 MTU
Keep in mind that $275 today is the same as $140 in January 2000. Tech gadgets used to be far more expensive, both in real terms and as a percentage of average income.