Apple has never tried to be the highest volume sales company, this isn’t new (iPod HiFi anyone?).
I’ve got 4 HomePods, love the sound and the functionality especially now with Siri shortcuts. Truth is, audio equipment should last 5-10 years and the quality of the HomePod reflects that. Apple built a speaker, not a gadget, and like a previous poster said, it’s not an impulse buy. I had a whole google home setup before, and the audio quality was terrible and couldn’t get multi room audio to ever work correctly, and the hoops to jump through to use features on an iPhone were frustrating. I would’ve done Sonos, but to match the HomePods quality I would’ve bought Play:5s and missed on the smart speaker.
Is everyone on MR just broke and here to complain? If you can’t afford one, that’s cool, there are cheaper solutions that in some ways are better (voice assistance or integration), so go buy that. It’s like calling a Lamborghini stupid because you can only afford a Kia.