It's been very economical for me, hell even for 9mm since it's still over 3x what it cost back in 2019. It doesn't even have to be rare cartridges, I originally took it up because 44 magnum was becoming increasingly expensive back then and despite making a resurgence .410 shotshells are still stupidly expensive. Brass can be recycled several times also many cartridges share the same primers and powders even so I have a lot of recipes to work with.
Excuse the autism.
I'm talking averages though. Ya you likely had the reloader, the dies, tumbler, tumbler material, powder, primers, space to do it all and even factoring in your time it's still cool for the applications you've listed. For the average person these are not fun upfront costs, also it's harder to find scrap lead if you're going real deep on it, then you need molds too (likely a way to powder coat for guns like glocks if doing 9mm). Lots of things to factor in that for the average person, now or during covid, felt/feel like it wasn't worth it (when Sleepy would've gotten into it was during covid pricing, hell she went for a 5.56 ak so she could
steal tactically acquire her dads ammo). Powder and primers were also dumb expensive during covid and are still up post covid just like complete cartridges.
For some, sure it's worth it. But also the policing your own brass for something like 9mm to save a couple cents is, on average for most people, not fun/worth it. You need a good well ventilated space to reload too (if you tumble or caste). As well, the average shooter doesn't even shoot 1,000 rounds a year so it's hard to justify the small (relative) savings against the upfront or continues costs against the like 20cpr for a case of 9mm today vs the what 13ish-cpr of 2019 and earlier on blackfriday sales. The deer hunter in the mid west might only shoot 5-10 rounds during deer season, so why would they either except out of tradition? The time to go through the whole process is fun, educational, and even cathartic for some as it's a hobby, however the average gun owner just wants to shoot trash/stay mildly proficient in their carry piece or kill their meat for the season.
And ya .410 is rarer, your magnum rounds are going to also be more boutique and it makes sense if you got the gear for it. I'd actually like to hear the raw numbers on what you save doing 9mm. I've read reports from other reloaders and for them it was like 6cpr vs store bought as they bought their bullets and only reused brass like 3 times (this was a long while ago when I read this); Can you get it down to 14cpr or better? I also dunno how you value your time both on the range to collect brass, what volume you actually shoot, and how long it takes to reload all your ammo start to finish. For instance, some pro shooters goes through over 50k rounds of 9mm a year and more than a few stopped reloading due to the time alone as the component costs weren't low enough when factoring time in and I suspect you don't need to be shooting 50k a year to hit that time margin, though admittedly that's the most subjective part. It's going to be somewhere between 1k and 50k but exactly where is any one persons preference.
For most it's hard to find and quantify the value proposition these days (outside of the things I previously mentioned like PRS, C&R type ammo, other boutique shit where it often clearly is worth it).