[gmueckl]

MathWorks offers a huge list of "toolboxes", domain specific extensions that cover a lot of features in each domain. Replacing Matlab isn't about the core language alone.

[tstenner]

Which often means that e.g. loading an image for displaying it increases cost by a few thousands

[gmueckl]

The price tags are wild for sure. But the sheer number of supported features is what makes them attractive. Cloning that completely is practically infeasable.