Makes perfect sense.
1. Say you pre-purchase at the slightly lower cost, if you ever want to enable the feature, they will charge more than that amount. Or say the next person, who buys it used, will want to enable it and pays the difference. They don't have to expend any maintenance costs...
I can see people who homebrew, as an artisan hobby. But using an automated system? It seems like it would be too expensive, and you've removed the "fun" of creating it yourself. It's like taking away the joy of cruising by having a level 4 autonomous car, that costs a fortune.
The problem is GMAIL is *too* strict. I can't tell you how often one of our clients complain that their customers aren't receiving their legitimate emails and ask what's wrong with our software. "Uh, no, you need to have GMAIL white list you."
I used to Listen to Kevin Klein, on the radio. That was the only time I touched the radio band. When he was booted off, I went to just streaming music.