But the tl;dr is that building prototypes is pricey, and the cost should definitely come down once the community moves from prototyping to mass-producing robots.
Hello Robots (the company behind the Stretch robot we're using) is also trying to bootstrap and build a sustainable product rather than blitzscaling and burning out fast [0, 1, 2] for which I respect them a lot. It's all too common of a story in robot world where have a great company showing lots of promise and then a year or two later they shut down after burning through investor money. I don't want to see it repeat.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/25/mayfield-robotics-ceases-p...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/24/23613214/everyday-robots-...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18682780/jibo-death-serve...