Collectors here may debate artificial/manufactured scarcity vs scarcity that developed organically, but it's hard to know whether those are legitimate distinctions (diamonds are super valuable and we know that the scarcity there is largely manufactured).
Taking a step further back, we have to acknowledge that for many people, spending any real amount on any collectible, whether current of vintage, is kind of laughable.
For most collectors though, collectibles connect us to something. Whether it is the game we love, the players we followed as kids, the stories we heard from our parents/grandparents or something else, it is about more than the item itself. Collecting vintage allows you to connect to the past that way, but collecting modern cards allows you to connect to game as it is being played, and many find great enjoyment in that.
The price of the card is hard to fathom for me, but it is arguably the single most significant baseball rookie card of the last 40 years. Unlike the 1989 UD Griffey rookie or 2001 Bowman Chrome Albert Pujols Auto rookie, this is the first transcendent player who has a 1/1, and Bowman Chrome is viewed by most as the marquee rookie card a player can have.
Of course an injury etc. would mean the price would drop, but the price could also go up. The reality is that the market or vintage can also swing. The fact that vintage players don't play doesn't make their cards impervious to market swings or conditions. Who knows whether over time interest will increase and grow for vintage, or if the next generation will not take to it.
I seem to recall the previous owner heard similar comments (about overpaying) when he paid $400K a couple of years back. Time will tell whether this ownetr does similarly well.
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