I don't disagree at all, but I'm quite curious where the cost actually comes from. Even including all the harnessing and other hardware, it doesn't seem like something that should be a bank-breaker when we're casually talking about vehicles worth tens of millions of dollars blowing up, if not being discarded after a single launch.
If you’re NASA, the cost comes from a cost+ contract with an incompetent vendor.
If your Blue Origin, the cost comes from each launch complex being essentially bespoke and
built on-site.
If you’re SpaceX, you plan ahead to use lego construction,
mass produce the pieces, the tanks, etc in a factory setting, and assemble the pieces on-site for much less and much faster.
I'm guessing its a combination of needing to acquire a massive amount of land among a limited number of candidate locations and then layering logistical constraints on top of that.
