Looking at other countries available and pricing, I don't think its particularly niche. Outside of Western Europe, pretty much every country is vastly inflated in price compared to a traditional SIM. If you're just going from the US to somewhere like France, sure, but anywhere beyond W. Europe its 3-5x more expensive. Of the dozen or so countries I've worked in, only Czechia has a roughly equivalent eSIM price. I doubt I'll be upgrading from my 12 anytime soon because of this.

Airalo is significantly more expensive than purchasing a SIM in many countries though. I just looked up their plan options for a country I regularly fly to for work and they charge $24 USD for their largest option - a 5 GB/mo plan. Meanwhile with a physical SIM I can pay $5 for unlimited everything on the exact same carrier that Airalo uses.