I bought a 110 Euro Boox eReader, it is great. It has the size of a slightly larger, but very thin, paperback, the display is extremely crisp and I can easily use alternative software on it. It has Bluetooth, wifi, USB-C and basically everything you can expect from an android tablet of that size.
Sure, 110 Euros isn't 10 or 30 Euros, but it is obviously very affordable to anyone living in the west.
I do not know what the point of these cheap readers would be? To create throwaway trash? If you read somewhat regularly a 110 Euro eReader is a very good investment.
Same here. I bought a boox poke for € 130 a couple of years ago and it's a vast improvement over my (at that point 9 year old) kindle paperwhite. No ads, no spying/data transfer to amazon, and I finally OWN my books and don't have to sqabble with amazon over them deleting books from my library. I buy books as files and sideload via USB (another thing amazon stops you doing). I read a lot - 150 TO 200 books/year - and de-DRMing every single one year after year just isn't an option. The poke is smaller than the paperwhite but crisp in display and has the same features you noted including tts. It's 4 years old and I expect it to last another 4, so I come to the same conclusion: cheaper readers would certainly increase electronic waste since people tend to take less care of objects that are cheap and easily replacable.