I think this is the first time I’ve contributed, and please forgive me if I offend anyone, as it’s not intended. This is just my humble opinion.
I tend to the side that kits are too expensive. I’m now nearly sixty and although I don’t make many I still buy, it’s the kit version of Tsundoku.
Perhaps the thought that the hobby is dying isnt quite true, but I do think it’s being affected.
My feelings are the demographic is changing. The young kit makers of yesteryear are the kit makers of today and I believe that’s why people are paying the prices of modern kits, mainly because they can afford it. I would have ask unless modelling is the only hobby, how many youngsters can afford £30 ,£40 or £50. Yes there are cheaper kits but mainly in the smaller scales, ebay does skew the prices both ways, But overall whether in a shop or eBay, the prices are out of reach of most youngsters, again not all but most.
I have sold quite a few kits on ebay, never to a young lad or lass.
Just my humble opinion
The hobby will I think changing dramatically over the next few years…
It’s par for the course for most things these days. Prices go up on everything.
But most of the time, all other products are crap, being meant to be replaced ( have you bought a cheap printer lately?)
If you get enjoyment out of the hobby it would be with it.
My self , I have never really had a stash, maybe 5 kits, not including figure kits.
But I have never really been one to buy new/ high price kits.
I have also been buying my kits locally instead of online. The store I frequent had pretty much any armor you might want and while I am not spending on the high price items, I have been trying to support him. I usually spend $100 every time I go in wether for supplies or supplies and a kit.
It’s also nice to get out during this COVID crap and talk kits with the dude.
I certainly learned on small scale kits and many of my modelling friends still work largely or exclusively in small scales. If a kit costs 10-20 (GBP, euro or dollars) then it’s less of a disaster if it goes wrong and swiping a few parts from one for another project is a more realistic proposition than if you paid three or four times that.
Modelling skills are the same regardless of the scale and I’ve seen incredibly well done small scale models and incredibly badly done large scale ones which cost far more. If someone can’t afford to buy a 1/200 USS Missouri with a trolley load of aftermarket accessories (or they choose not to) then they can build one in 1/700 which is much cheaper and not necessarily easier. The key determinant of the quality of the finished model will be the skills employed in building and finishing it.
We all have our hobbies constrained by our budgets, whether voluntary or not. It doesn’t preclude anyone from producing amazing results.
Cheap printers have been disposable items for a while now; cheaper to buy a new one than to replace the ink half the time. When I did IT we only fixed the big multifunction copier/scanner machines. Everything got replaced if reinstalling the drivers didn’t work.