Its all relative — I paid $10 for a month in Germany as a resident (comes with full EU roaming). Prices in other EU countries are even cheaper. It took 1 minute to plug it in.
Also, travelers from Western countries might not really be ecstatic about paying for paying $$ for something that comes with zero upside to physical SIM.
People pay more for digital media than physical media in other contexts for the convenience. I'm not going to buy a DVD on amazon to save a few dollars.
It's subjective, I'm sure there's still people buying DVDs, but you can't say that there's "zero upside"
Also, travelers from Western countries might not really be ecstatic about paying for paying $$ for something that comes with zero upside to physical SIM.