In case it wasn't clear, user 21 was responding to user garblegarble with alternatives to the Intel NUC8i7BEH (~$484 in the US), not the Mac Mini.

But yes, the decked-out i7 Mac Mini is really expensive! As noted elsewhere in the comments (and in the article), a big chunk of that cost is in Apple's 1TB SSD pricing - ticking that option adds $800 over the 128GB SSD for some reason.