Sure, 30 dollars for an update may seem nominal, but that price will be an extra 30 dollars added to the price of the device. After all, you spend several hundred dollars on a GPS when you buy the device, so paying for map updates almost seems like a rip-off. Arguably, the most annoying part of the update process is paying for new map updates.
Getting free TomTom maps updates can be a bit of a pain.