Why audio streamers are so much more expensive than video streamers?

On Wednesday I setup 3 Raspberry Pi’s and 2 Sonore OpticalRendu’s for a client. It was not close for my ears, the opticalRendu smoked it. The OpticalRendu is what I use at home. I have a $299 Ubiquiti Networks Network Switch and plug the fibre Optical directly into the Ubiquiti switch. I also set this up at the client who plans on getting a 2nd switch to have 4 fibre optical SPF slots.

I also setup a tricked out ROON Server for the client and could not tell if it was better than my super cheap and noisy DELL ROON Core computer. I mention this because I think fibre optical wire kills the noise that can get into a DAC. I need to do more testing on this last part at home.

I often wondered why I never see a SQ shootout between different streamers. Why?? 

I spent $2k on mine but does three functions. Streams, Burns and stores. 

Anyone else have an answer?

I have had a few streamers pass through my system, ranging in price from $100 to about $1200.  I have a natural sympathy with the premise of the OP, but I have to comment that the cheaper streamers can’t hold a candle to their more expensive brethren.  The cheaper ones have sounded thin and harsh and opaque in the midrange.
  I don’t know where the point of diminishing returns is.  My prejudice is that a streamer costing $15K isn’t going to give me 10 times the pleasure of what I have now, but I have neither the funds or the inclination to investigate.
  And, of course, the rest of the system matters.  If the system isn’t that good then it is hard to grade the difference between sources 

@mike_in_nc 
Thank you Mike for this reference of “Veblen theory” as I read through its Wikipedia it is exactly the answer to my question, as to many things/behavior in this world. As I am mocking my wife’s purchase of expensive purse bags, I myself have this habit to be mocked as well. At the end of the day, we are just trying to justify the irrational behaviors to make ourselves feel good. And that’s about it.

I tend to agree with the OP’s premise and I too have noticed that a $40 firestick should be some sort of guidepost for what should be available in the audio world. This is tempered by what I suspect is a vast economy of scale that a firestick enjoys, versus a dedicated music streamer. Then we have to acknowledge the ethos of audio hobbyists- careful attention to power supplies, etc often well past the point of audibility. And uncertainty- a person who has already spent $10,000 or more on a carefully selected audio system my look skeptically on a $35 or $40 streaming solution, acknowledging that it will work, but asking will it work well. After all, we seek “balance” in our system and where we might have a turntable at $1500 and a CD player at $1000, a $35 streamer seems, as a knee jerk reaction, way off. Of course the cynic (or realist) may just shake their head and realize our well intentioned hobbyist has gotten ensnared in the audio industry’s trap. Who knows. Years back I had a set of pricey xlr cables where a connection failed. Being handy with a soldering iron I moved forward to do the repair myself. And what did I find under the tech flex, then the audio cable company’s outer casing and the the actual cable which was clearly marked Belden. Now of course nothing wrong with Belden  but this turned out to be a fancy high priced cable wearing layers of ‘gold’ to conceal its humble but perfectly adequate origins. What was more upsetting is how poorly the “factory” terminations were made. My take away is that for us hobbyists, since we do like solid cabinets, robust linear power supplies, good user interfaces, and we are not buying a product that is being made in the millions, we are going to pay more- and most likely a whole lot more.