You're assuming even at 79 dollars the profit margin isn't already inflated. This thing is essentially a magsafe charger ($39) and an Apple Watch Charger ($29) with a couple extra circuits and some plastic which adds perhaps a dollar to the production cost. Given that those two products sell for a combined $68, pricing the Duo at $79 like most people expected would have provided a consistent Apple-esque profit margin. Tacking another 50 dollars on top of that, however, is ludacris even by Apple standards.
Not being able to get back to sleep after waking up at 5:45am on my day off, I spent the morning perusing other tech sites and the response has not been positive, especially from the non-Apple specific sites. This went from a must-have day one purchase to WTF Apple. The fact that a fully featured smart speaker is running for 30 dollars less than a charger is not being received well by anyone.
You have to wonder if that inflated profit margin is worth the negative backlash and what is quickly adding up to be a deathblow to any interest in the product at all at this point. You'd think Apple would have learned after the fiasco with the HomePod pricing, but clearly they haven't.