Imagine if other cars were like that: "Sorry, we're not able to service engines so instead of replacing your timing belt for $400 you have to buy a new engine for $6000"
In this case, Tesla under-equips service centers so local battery repairs aren't possible. Shipping it back to the factory is necessary. So I can kind of understand if they charge the customer a $1200 freight fee + the cost of the repair itself, but that would still be > $10,000 less than the cost of an entire new battery pack.
Although I think it would be much better if Tesla actually enabled their service centers to do repairs like this. They can get away with it right now since they're more of a luxury/prestige brand and have minimal competition in that EV segment, but if you buy a Cadillac you don't deal with this type of thing:
As other manufacturers are catching up with offerings that compete on the lucury/prestige side of EV's as well as entry level cars. These are manufacturers with more experience in engineering their cars for decentralized service, with customers that expect that: Honda knows that their Civic customers won't buy a comparable EV if a little road debris will either cost them $10k out of pocket or raise their insurance by getting a $10k at-fault claim that raises their insurance costs. Tesla may have a hard time facing such competition without changing their model.
Currently the extra price of an EV makes attracts customers where price is not as much of an issue. As manufacturers significantly larger than Tesla enter the marker with their economies of scale and lower prices, the target customer for an EV will change, as will their expectations.