Couldn't you make the same argument that any of us on this forum using more than 1 monitor at our desk, doesn't really understand the benefits of our technology and are using our monitors like 19th century chalk boards?
You can still spend the money. But you don't need to show off in front of the people you are stealing the money from.
There are a bunch of accounting firms, law firms, and consulting agencies that don't allow their employees to wear super expensive clothing, jewelry or drive luxury cars in front of their clients. And they aren't even doing anything illegal.
I've already spent HOURS in Midjourney generating hundreds of images just to get the perfect cyborg robot elf. I just want to use that work and upload the best of those images into the character creator, rather than hoping the prompt gets me something close to the character I want and waiting 20 minutes to find out.
I loved making custom progress bars really fun so people didn't mind watching the huge sites download.
I HATED when they had me mess with the time so that it got to 90% really fast and then spent AGES finishing the last 10%.