I'm with you. A very high end 1TB M2 SSD card can be had for under $400, with good SSD cards being under $200.

The pretty-high-end 1TB Samsung 970 EVO has dropped as low as $228 recently from multiple vendors.

https://slickdeals.net/f/12192367-1tb-samsung-970-evo-nvme-m...

If you really need the very-high-end, then yeah, the 970 PRO is just shy of $400.

For cheaper stuff, ADATA's 960GB was recently down around $180.

SSD prices have really dropped the last few months.