why are large switches so dear

Economies of scale - not that many people buy 16-48 port switches, those that do tend to be business/prosumer, they don't want cheap plastic crap, which budget 8 port switches tend to be.
 
I would argue that they’re actually not that much more expensive on a per-port basis within the same range.

Quite the opposite actually.

You stated unmanaged and a TP-Link SG-1008 is £40 on a large South American sounding website. The TP-Link SG-1016 is £52 from the same site and the SG-1024 is £80 from the same site. So three times the ports, double the money. Jumping up to the SG-1048 at £180 does increase cost on a per-port basis but you are paying for much more RAM, a bigger CPU and a pretty beefy power supply.

And it may be worth bearing in mind that a managed switch acts just like an unmanaged switch if you don’t use the management features.
 
And always check the specs on these switches below a certain price threshold. Are ALL the ports gigabit? Can it actually sustain transfers across ALL the ports at gigabit speeds. I’ve seen wired PCs run slower than WLAN connected PCs on a cheap switch because they heat up and slow down.
 
WJA96 said:
I would argue that they’re actually not that much more expensive on a per-port basis within the same range.

Quite the opposite actually.

You stated unmanaged and a TP-Link SG-1008 is £40 on a large South American sounding website. The TP-Link SG-1016 is £52 from the same site and the SG-1024 is £80 from the same site. So three times the ports, double the money. Jumping up to the SG-1048 at £180 does increase cost on a per-port basis but you are paying for much more RAM, a bigger CPU and a pretty beefy power supply.

And it may be worth bearing in mind that a managed switch acts just like an unmanaged switch if you don’t use the management features.
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While your point is certainly valid, op is comparing the cheapest, nastiest, 8 port plastic monstrosity he can find to a 16 port, and not looking in brand at cost per port. The giveaway is that his 8 port is half the price of a known budget brand (even one that a few years ago was shunned and laughed at).
 
Brand means very little in computing these days. If it ever did. Even back when “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”, Dell, Compaq and Toshiba were supposedly the joke brands.
 
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