It does seem like a weird system.
The alternative that's been around for centuries is called "having a sale".
Say, you make 1000 units of something. Each unit costs X to make. You need to make Y profit per unit to sustain your business.
The bad news is, not everyone wants to pay X+Y. The good news: some are willing to pay more. The supply-demand curve thing.
So what you can do is: sell 500 units at X+2Y. Then have limited-time sales throughout <time period> at X+0.1Y.
This way, you never lose money on a sale, and you make the money you wanted to make. The customers that want your product here and now* pay for that premium. The customers that need your product will pay up as well, as sales aren't a guaranteed thing. And the rest will wait.
With smart hardware, someone had a genius idea: have the same breakdown in prices, but also cripple the products you sell at a lower price. Make your money faster by selling at both price points simultaneously.
Nothing* wrong with trying to do that (from the seller's side).
Nothing wrong with being disgusted with the wasteful practice it and calling it out (from the customer's side).
* aside from the waste aspect, repair aspect, customer hostility, artificially high margins probably being result of a monopoly/lock-in/supplier scarcity, and a plethora of other things.
So if you don't buy the option it's not destroyed forever, but can be utilized by future users once you move on. This allows them to provide customers with instant access to extra value by charging them enough to support putting a sealed hand truck on every U-Haul, or extra terabytes in every account.
If I had purchased such a product it would leave a sour taste in my mouth. The next time I needed such a piece of equipment I would try to find an alternative source.
Here's an analogy. If I'd purchased a box lunch of a juice box, sandwich and chips, but surprisingly they also included a cookie that is in a special package which will only unlock if I pay another $1 I would be upset. Of course, I could just throw the cookie away, package and all. I may not want the cookie anyway. But that's so wasteful! The vendor can afford to include the cookie at the price I already paid, but is solely using that cookie as a way to extract more money from me. It's wasteful.