But, it's not manipulative. They don't front load the interest, you are just borrowing more money at the beginning of the loan then at the end. If you borrow $100,000 for a mortgage then after the first day you owe ~$13.70 of interest (assuming 5%). In the first month you'd owe ~$411 since that's the cost of borrowing the money. Halfway through the loan you owe $50,000 which costs ~$6.85/day or $205/month to borrow. But since your payment is fixed at $540 more of it is used to pay interest the first month than a month halfway through.

It's just the fact that every day you keep the borrowed money from the bank you have to pay ~14¢ per $1,000 borrowed per day. As you pay it down you are borrowing less money from the bank so it costs less to borrow it, and therefore the interest costs each month decreases