My sibling in Talos, are you entirely unfamiliar with the concepts of 'loss leaders', 'rent seeking/Software as a Service' and 'hooking them while they're young'?

Every single one of those is common place in the digital world these days, and this is no exception. By getting these devices in the hands of kids for less than the cost of the device, you can affect what services they choose to use in the future (by making them already familiar with your product by the time they can choose for themselves) and setting them up to live in your walled garden and making them pay a premium to stay in (see also, the Apple model).