I don’t know if I would consider this “dishonest”, it seems like maybe there was some misunderstanding or miscommunication happening.
Either way, if you think it’s too expensive you could just use the free account. I pay for an account but I also have a couple of free, extra accounts and they work perfectly fine.
Have you tried Retro Music?
I like it and got it in an attempt to move on to something more aesthetically pleasing than VLC, but I just ended up going back to VLC.