Are they just lazy monopolists or am I missing something crucial?

What _is_ inexcusable to me is that the calculator still costs as much as it does. I'd bet the bill of materials for a TI-84 is cheaper than that of a Raspberry Pi at this point. A few years ago I had to take apart my -83 and discovered from references online that there were revisions A through at least K of the hardware, with many cost cutting measures made along the way. And while there's something to be said for the supply chain for a 20+ year old device probably having dried up several times over, none of those cost savings seem to have been passed onto the consumer.

However, all US textbooks contain examples specifically for TI calculators, all teachers get TI calculators for free and thus they don't recommend getting anything else but a TI calc.

I got one, so great. Statistical Student's T at the lab bench for advanced freshman chemistry. In 1987.

they did _what?!_ I recall TI-Basic programs running at a snail's pace on my TI-8whatever, without assembly nothing of any scale can be done, even numerical analysis.