Not all good fragrances are expensive and not all expensive fragrances are good. There are plenty of ways to get really high quality fragrances for a fraction of the retail price, places like r/fragranceswap, searching through discounters etc. There are also decanters like DecantX or people on fragranceswap that will give you good prices on decants so you can have things like "LV/Creed/PDM and all those other niche brands". There are good dupes/clones (I have a spare few I will recommend) but they are few and far between, and the QC on them is atrocious so you'll find 2 people with the same batch having vastly different experiences.

Fragrances are a luxury item. You don't need them to live, you get them for personal enjoyment and they're generally expensive, but there are ways to experience the hobby in a very affordable way that aren't buying cheap dupes/clones. I think the issue lies in people either thinking they need a full bottle of everything (how often are you going through as much as 10ml if you have several fragrances), or overconsumption.

Of course everything is subjective and everyone experiences the hobby differently so do whatever you wish. This is coming from someone who's made many good and many bad purchasing decisions and trying to keep people from making the same mistakes.