I imagine a huge part of the equation is cost, cost of ammo (arrows) if not the bows themselves. A few years ago I figured up the cost of arrows made from bought components that I assembled myself, and it came to $2.50 apiece. Rifle cartridges are alot cheaper than that. I imagine a similar economic dynamic might have applied to lead balls and powder charges vs. arrows back in the day.
It would have, but in reverse.
When you look at the bow in history, it's use in England was (er, is) just a teency weency piece of its history and use across the globe. Depending on which data you choose to believe, the bow has been around for at least 7000 or possibly as long as 30,000 years. Laminated/layered/composite bows have been around for at least 4000 years. The materials and knowledge required to make bows were literally "everywhere" and available for everyone. Bows and arrows literally grow on trees. In reality, the bow is the easy part. A great bow is nothing without good arrows. Good arrows will fly pretty good out of a cruddy bow, though. Making good arrows is more difficult than making a good bow.
The poorest people in the world have always had access to archery equipment, because they can pick the materials up off the ground and make the equipment themselves. As a matter of fact, people that needed bows often had one they were using, a spare one, and several staves curing so they could be turned into bows as they needed them. They were "free" after all, as well as being necessary for survival...
Medieval England throws some complications into the equation, because now there's division of class, ownership of resources, etc.. But then again, every able-bodied male was expected to own, be proficient with, and practice daily with his bow at one point.
On the other hand, powder and lead aren't as easy to find. And even if the materials are readily at hand, it requires special knowledge (which was often kept "secret") to turn charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate into a reliable, powerful, powder. Those materials and knowledge were much more costly. Supply and demand factors in here. The demand for powder and lead eventually got high while the overall supply was low, driving the price up, while the supplies for archery equipment were high with a lower demand which kept prices low.
And again, the firearms themselves took special non-readily-available materials, knowledge, and skill, to create. That translates to an expensive firearm, using expensive powder and possibly expensive lead. Even if the lead is "cheap", it's not as cheap or readily available as dogwood saplings and chert (arrows).
The lead was a mined resource that wasn't available to everyone locally, so had to be transported, traded for, purchased, etc... It wasn't cheap. Sulfur was the same. Potassium Nitrate was often leached from animal or human waste (again, using a technique that wasn't known by everyone).
Maintenance too... Once a firearm is procured, it still requires a specially-trained person to make repairs or replacement parts (which in almost every case were "custom" parts, since it was pre- industrial revolution). Firearms were made one at a time by an individual in a blacksmith shop. If he needed a screw, he made one from scratch. If he needed a trigger, he made one from scratch. If he needed a barrel, he made one from scratch. Even if he made several barrels at the same time they weren't identical... Firearms were what we think of as "custom made" and expensive.
Prices of "a few years ago" for store-bought archery supplies cannot even remotely be compared to what they've been in history. First of all, those items likely weren't available for purchase for the most part, since they were readily available for everyone and nobody wanted to pay for them. 100 years ago, people didn't go to the store and buy sticks so they could make arrows. And again, supply and demand kicks in, but this time in reverse... Nowadays, powder and lead are cheap, whereas archery equipment is more of a rarity or specialty. Archery equipment is more expensive (by far) than it's been in the past, while firearms and bullets are far cheaper than they've been in the past.
