Why would over 1000$ not be acceptable for a niche product which is manufactured in small quantities?
Hell, even if it wasn't, $1,000 is mid-range in the laptop world (e.g. a bottom end Dell XPS 13 or Envy clocks in around that price point), and anything below that starts to get pretty hit-and-miss.
Eh, it’s the price of a M1 MacBook Air which isn’t exactly a slouch of a machine.
The base m1 air is often $900 at places like costco and is always available via the educational discount which anybody can get. Granted, it needs a RAM and HD upgrade for most HN users which quickly becomes highway robbery with apple's upgrade pricing, but still the base is under $1K.
Anything can go wrong until September, then you can say goodbye to the $.