If there's a silver lining it's that you can grind out their item mall currency via game play, with some caps to how quickly it's earned in-game. I can't be bothered to look it up but, in theory, players will eventually be able to buy the ship via grinding. How long (or not) that'll take I don't know.
and if Elite is anything, it's a grind. So yeah, that's on brand I suppose.
OTOH, FDev, rather unsurprisingly IMO, is breaking a promise after saying they'd never do this with their item mall.