It's not just that. Yes there's an element of "quicker and easier" which means you can do a better job and/or do it cheaper.
But IMO there's a MUCH more important factor - using the RIGHT tool for each job means doing a better quality job with less scope for damage or latent faults that will cause problems down the line.
"Rip off" is a subjective term. Your perspective is as someone who only needs to do a small number of crimps - and doing them for yourself so YOU can make the value judgement as to how much to spend on tooling vs the risks of doing an inferior job vs the costs of doing it another way.
For most people in this thread, the vlaue judgement is not so much "how cheaply can I do these two crimps", but "what is the best value for a tool that will last a good few years, operate reliably, and do quality reliable crimps that won't cause me "warranty work" costs or reputation damage down the line.
And something you need to factor in to these "simple pliers" is that they are typically many stampings (or perhaps laser cut pieces) that need design and tooling, plus tooling for assembly, etc, etc - and all for a relatively low volume product. There's a difference between a pair of ordinary pliers that will sell many millions and a more complex crimper that will sell in the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousand units.
I've just grabbed my pair (admittedly not a particularly high spec) of insulated terminal crimpers to examine.
The plier type you first mentioned is basically 2 stamped steel plates, a rivet, and two plastic handle covers. A grand total of 5 parts.
This ratchet crimper (similar, but not identical to this one) has TEN (2 different shapes) stampings just for the crimp dies. Some designs have a pair of castings or forgings - but that is probably a higher tooling cost up-front. Some allow the dies to be swapped, allowing the use of one frame for multiple terminal types.
Then the frame has another eight stampings, plus a couple more for the ratchet assembly, plus (I think) twenty seven pins, screws, rivets, circlips. A couple of springs. ... And a couple of plastic handles.
So a total of 12 different stamped parts in a total of about 51 parts (and the one I've linked to above will have a couple more with being adjustable).
TEN times as many parts, made to tighter tolerances, IMO a bargain at the price they charge for it.
BTW, I don't have a lot of the tools others here do. I only do electrics as a "hobby", so I simply don't have the volume of work to justify the expenditure for many of them. For example, I don't have a PAT tester - I couldn't justify the cost, and will spend a little longer doing it the long way round using my MFT.
Many of the tools I do have, such as the MFT, I've picked up when I've seen bargains - IIRC the MFT was from a batch going cheap on eBay from a hire/testing house, presumably when they were upgrading their in-service stuff. It's not the best or fastest - but then I can afford to take a little longer on the low volume of work I do. Some tools I've made, some tools my late father made.
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