Hmm yes but if it is limited to 10 in an hour that could even be an issue for hobbyists if you update multiple dockers at the same time. For example the excellent matrix ansible playbook pulls numerous dockers in a single update run because every little feature is in a separate container. Same with home assistant add-ons. It's pretty easy to reach 10 in an hour. Even though you may not pull any for a whole month afterwards. I only do this once a month because most matrix bridges only get updates at that rate.

I have to say though, 90% of the dockers I use aren't on docker hub anymore. Most of them reside on the github docker repo now (ghcr.io). I don't know where the above playbook pulls from though as it's all automated in ansible.

And really docker is so popular because of its ecosystem. There are many other container management platforms. I think that they are undermining their own value this way. Hobbyists will never pay for docker pulls but they do generate a lot of goodwill as most of us also work in IT. This works the other way around too. If we get frustrated with docker and start finding alternatives it's only a matter of time until we adopt them at work too.

If they have an issue with bandwidth costs they could just use the infrastructure of the many public mirrors available that also host most Linux distros etc. I'm sure they'd be happy to add publicly available dockers.