Except that many people already have Matter servers with Thread Border Routers in their household. Apple TV, HomePod, Google TV Streamer 4K, various Google Nest Hubs, recent Amazon Echo. Heck, even recent iPhones have a Thread radio, so that they can talk directly to Thread devices [1].

I have a lot of qualms with Threads, such as Thread device internet access through TBRs that do not allow you to disable NAT64 (or even worse, getting globally routable IPv6 addresses in Thread 1.4), but complaining that people have to buy another device is not one.

People are far more likely to have a TBR already than an IKEA Zigbee Hub. And even if they hadn't, they could get any other TBR/Matter Server besides IKEAs. So it's not a great way of selling smart home hubs.

[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/09/18/apple-enables-dir...