[notarobot123]

What about design, build, marketing etc.?

I don't get why the maker market complains so much about the idea of businesses selling products at a healthy markup. Just because you know how the sausage was made doesn't mean that the logic of operating a business is any different to how it works in the consumer world.

If you're skilled and motivated enough to make it yourself, you might save some money. You'd loose a lot of time though and that's worth something too (perhaps a lot more).

[mghackerlady]

Roughly $200 is simply far too expensive though. If it were $100-$150, then I could wince at the price that ultimately is necessary for the product to exist. But $200? I just feel like I'm being ripped off. For that price, I'd recommend people buy a raspberry pi and some parts from adafruit and make their own ultimately better version

[hxii]

The cost of design, build and marketing do not triple the final price by themselves.

The kickstarter was successfully funded, yielding in over $3.3M. The device back then was $149 at 20% off, with $169 being the full price. That's still not $193.

Again, this is just my personal opinion, but even taking everything into account and factoring in a nice profit margin, being OVER $100 is very, very hard to justify.