In what world is a browser worth $500? For comparison, a complete operating system (eg. windows) has cost around $200, and this was applicable even in windows 98 days, before microsoft was trying to monetize it using ads/telemetry.
When buying software the cost is heavily impacted by the number of users that benefit. Windows is used by >100m users, a new browser is probably doing well if it's used by >100. Of course the price is different.
Well the reality is that there are two browser engines that are free and open source. If they built their own that was better than the incumbents (eg. from performance/privacy point of view), then I might consider it. But I'm not paying $5000 for a chrome reskin, just like I won't pay $5000 for a debian reskin.
