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So a 6 part adventure is 22 USD and some change without tax. That’s roughly $140 for a whole adventure. A single D&D adventure is $50 and comes in a nice hardback book. So for the price of one adventure for pathfinder I can nearly buy three D&D adventure books. So why is a single adventure so much more expensive than a D&D one?
Partly because there’s more content (each of the six instalments is 96 pages - the adventure is typically about two thirds of that and the other third is monsters, campaign setting material and other such stuff that’s sometimes closely themed to the adventure and sometimes more peripheral). The D&D hardcovers vary, but they’re around half (?) the page count of a Paizo AP.
Another reason is because it’s broken into smaller pieces. Typically the most expensive pages in a book are the covers and the first thirty two pages, after that it gets cheaper and cheaper per page. We’re essentially paying a little to get regular updates rather than having to wait six months between modules (not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a more expensive model and that flows through to the retail price).
Finally, it’s worth noting that “an adventure” isn’t really a good measure. At our table (for example) one of the D&D hardcovers takes anywhere from six to twelve months. A Paizo PF1 AP took us from eighteen to thirty months.
So I can buy six Paizo APs and run my group for two years, but I’d need two or three D&D hardcovers to get the same amount of gameplay. D&D is still probably cheaper, but not by as much as it appears plus (as per the above) I’d get less backmatter material.
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If they take so long to finish though how would they sell more adventure paths? Starfinder has 5 out now and it’s only been out for 2 years I believe? Unless ppl just like to stock up and collect (like I personally do) I don’t see if a group is invested in a story already to want to purchase any others until they were finished with their current one.
I think there are a lot of collectors. (I certainly have way more adventures than I’ll ever be able to run). However, there are also many who opt out as adventure paths come round they’re not interested in and then jump back in again when one comes along that they like.
I think a dedicated D&D group could play every adventure WotC put out. I think that’d be almost impossible with the adventures Paizo puts out for pathfinder.
The other thing is the backmatter - you mention Starfinder APs, for example - there’s a ton of stuff in the back third of each of them that’s useful regardless of whether you run that specific adventure (though they generally include material that is at least tangentially related to the adventure). I think it’s unlikely I’ll ever run another Starfinder AP, but I still personally get a lot of value out of the other bits and pieces (granted it’s a pricey way to buy lore). The Pathfinder APs also include a bunch of non-adventure material.