Exactly, in retrospect it's easy to confuse with a regular commercial transaction that happens to be with the government. But only because SpaceX was ultimately wildly successful with the Falcon 9/Dragon/Crew Dragon.

If SpaceX failed to deliver a working product after a receiving a bunch of incremental payments for the pre-delivery milestones (deliberately structured to prop up their early R&D), it might have ended up front and center as an example of government "picking winners and losers" gone wrong like how Solyndra was featured at the 2012 RNC.