It looks like it was more a question of price in their market. In the post he mentions a 16 port switch but it's 10x the price of an 8 port. I bet it's a question of there being fewer people in the Singapore market looking for an >8 port switch on the low end of the market.
The switches he references in his post are from two entirely different product verticals. One is from the unmanaged vertical, the other is from the managed PoE vertical. Not only is he ignoring that a 16 port switch exists in the unmanaged vertical, he's ignored an entire vertical of managed switches without PoE.
TP-Link makes a $40 unmanaged 16-port gigabit switch and a $80 managed 16-port gigabit switch.
He's created a False dilemma/dichotomy by pretending that other options don't exist. This is like saying "I'd like a Toyota automobile larger than the Yaris but I can't afford the Lexus LS".
It's entirely possible that those options weren't readily available in the local store he's using. I'm not familiar with Singapore in particular but a lot of Asian countries don't have the huge electronics box stores that are common in the US and Europe. I've seen quite a few videos where the best electronic source the person had was what would be a small sized store in a US mall (20 feet wide, one isle with a counter running down one side for example). Online shopping does exist but shipping times and cost can also be pretty large.
I was just pointing out characteristics that would lend themselves toward sourcing a network switch (e.g. accessible, wealthy, giant freaking electronics malls).
