You can always get the Pi Zero 2 W, which is still more capable than the orignal Pi was, and costs even less, even after all these years.
Or the 1 GB version of the Pi 4. For many projects, even that is overkill. Not everyone needs the stuff Pi 5 brings, like dual 4k60 monitors or the PCIe slot.
Just buy whatever your use case requires. The “zero” line has kind of filled that very low cost niche for now.