I'll agree and say the economy of scale and the proliferation of RTRs has made the hobby much more affordable than it ever was before. For example my first nitro buggy, a OFNA Pirate M1 I built back in 91 was $350 for the rolling chassis, $350 for a Paris Picco P5, and $350 for a Futaba 3PB radio. Granted they were among the best you could buy but that car was over $1100 when all was said and done... and that was 20 years ago. I paid less for my Baja. Now for under $500 you can get a great nitro or electric RTR from a number of excellent companies. I just picked my son up a SC10 Brushless RTR for $279 and it's an awesome value for the money. I was going to build another SC10 but it didn't make sense, the motor and ESC were much better than I expected for an RTR. We use 3PKS radios so I recycled the SC10's radio by putting it in a Losi Mini that we gave to one of my son's friends to get him into the hobby.

Often times his or our friends will ask what it costs to get into the hobby and I'll usually say "around $350 plus some accessories" and in turn they say "wow that's a lot". I'll say "well how much did you pay for your XBOX or PS3? " and they'll say "yeah I guess that's not too bad" Once they drive one they're hooked and the price of admission doesn't seem so bad.