There are two other companies working on satellite based cellular service. One of them is publicly traded. Starlink costs $500 for the hardware and $99 a month. I think the pricing you are referring to is for a higher tier professional service (I.e. a school vs a single house)
From their own website, also currently the only way to ‘buy it now’ so to speak. Also the only way to get the main benefit of Starlink, internet service independent of geographic location.
The pricing you’re referring to is a waitlist for ? period of time for a vast majority of the US population, at least last I checked.
As someone who has a Starlink dish at this price point, I can assure you that it's a real product. The reason why there is a waitlist is to avoid over-saturating the bandwidth in a small area. If your area does not have a lot of users, you can sign up right away. Similarly if you order Starlink for EVs you do not have to wait.
