I'm sure the price comes from a lack of scale.

The creators of this should consider something like massdrop.com to see if they can generate sufficient interest to get the prices within a reasonable range. The "Crazy Circuits Makerspace Set"[0] is just about an order of magnitude more costly than I would consider "cheap" for such a kit.

That said, as someone who had a lot of fun with Snapcircuits as a child, I agree that this would have been a great way to transition from something that is essentially a "toy" to full blown bread-board tinkering.

[0] https://www.browndoggadgets.com/collections/new-classroom-se...