> they only got even that far because because an eccentric billionaire has staked his reputation on the problem and thrown a huge amount of money at it

That's what Bezos did with its Blue Origin. If you check where is Blue Origin in space race, you'll quickly realize it's not enough

Edit: ah, and is space still expensive? If one of universities in my middle-sized country with no space engineering background could afford to launch cubesat via SpaceX, then yes, I think it became cheap.