It's literally a card game. You can argue the utility and use case are stupid, or wildly less than the cost would suggest, but it's silly to say there is no utility, even if most collectors don't play the game.
It's just gambling and a greater fool dependent market all over again.
This is very much intended so that collectors chasing the nice full art / textured rare cards flood the second hand market with the less desirable cheaper versions. Players can then easily buy those cards for almost nothing and with ample volume available.
Pokemon company did a terrible job designing and evolving the game itself..
In person, the competitive scene in western countries is larger than MTG right now, and on the same scale as Riftbound. In Japan it's always been the biggest by an order of magnitude. The two big western open entry tournaments, EUIC / NAIC, sell out ~4,000 player tickets in a matter of seconds. Regionals tournaments that happen almost twice a month throughout the year sell out ~2K-3K player tickets in a matter of minutes.
What TPC is doing good is, that they have a special kids format with an age-barrier, so kids wont get outpriced that bad and have a fun interaction with a peer group of the same age. I love how my MTG Store has special Tournament Hours only for the Kids Qualifier groups, so that there are no Neckbeards around trying to take advantage of kids and their understanding for money, the game or god knows what ive experienced in my early YGO days playing against people that were 20 years older than me.
Sure some parents have deeper pockets than others, but you can manage to play the game with a tight budget, depending on the format.
Then there is the official online simulator which is not monetized at all and not used for competitive events so there is no reason for them to market it as a product like its mobile game sister.