Producing electronics at small quantities is expensive. Prototypes are expensive. Economies of scale is everything when it comes to producing cost-effective electronics.
Correct that's the way Pine64 works. Really it's the way the vast majority of niche ARM powered dev boards work. It is often stated on the product pages for people that don't seem to understand this. Their devices are often sold for very little margins above cost as they are mainly to drive developers to the platform. (as development on these devices benefits the SoC manufacturers)
If you want something more consumer friendly come back in two+ years when some of the kinks have been worked out.
These people try to make these products in the open and without huge funding so it can actually reamin open.
There is no indication they will ever leave this stage. I believe they generally sell at cost, even for working products. The purpose is to advance the technology, not to make a profit. But, the manufacturing and NRE costs need to be paid somehow.
It's not ideal, but its better than nothing.
To then follow that up with allowing most of the multi-million dollar development to be done by hobbyists who have purchased your non-functional hardware and you have a recipe for... something.
“ The main purpose of Pine Store creation is servicing PINE64 community. Most of the profit generated from Pine Store uses for production cash flow, new product engineering fee, sponsor community event expense, maintain server cost, and also supporting other open source communities.”