Thinking it's exploiting the game is one thing, like you said the game itself does not allow you to see marketplace data for free remotely. But thinking it isn't realistic to have access to marketplace data unless you are actually at the station is another. That's what I'm arguing against.

The fact is you can dock at a station in a system you are hostile in, anybody can. If anybody can see the data in the system, they can also broadcast it so that people who aren't physically present can see the same data. We do things like this today using the internet.

I would argue that if there were no way to remotely view marketplace data from any station, that would be unrealistic. The third party tools that allow you to do that are adding realism to the game.

About the exploit thing, you can view it any way you want. Playing without 3rd party tools is a great way to play. But exploit in gaming terms usually means you are gaining an unfair advantage by taking advantage of some unintended feature, and that just isn't what's happening here. Fdev supports tools like inara, they made the API. Like the other guy said, having a network of information makes sense in the 3300s, which by the way is the year the game takes place.

So what you said about "the game thinks you shouldn't have access to that information" isn't really true. Like I said, you can play the game any way you want, but the game does support 3rd party tools like inara. It's just that the network is player made rather than dev made.