I disagree wholeheartedly with microtransactions, outside of perhaps cosmetics in otherwise free to play games.
It doesn't matter to me if it can be ignored, it's just particularly egregious in this case as the dev literally said something like "we won't have fast travel because fast travel is for boring games" only for the game to include it and for it to be monetised.
It probably won't stop me picking it up in a sale, but as consumers, we shouldn't accept this nonsense. If Elden Ring, for example, contained a small, finite number of health potions, but launched with a £2 microtransaction to acquire more, it could similarly be handwaved with "you can ignore it/you don't have to buy it" but it wouldn't make it any less shit.