Silly product indeed! But, there should be a place for "alternative" multimeters, if you understand what engineers want. Many years ago, I built an "acoustic multimeter" that do three and only three things. Continuity, ohms and volts. Continuity is the same as the lowest ohms scale. A beeper gives a tone according to the resistance or voltage. Nothing more, nothing less. But it has been REALLY useful for me over the years when you only need an indication and cannot read a display and measure at the same time.
Unfortunately I lost it when I moved a couple of years ago and the schematics is long gone, but I'm thinking of creating a new one.
Edit: the ranges were 0-10 ohms, 1k, 100k, 10M and 0-1, 5, 20 volts. Today I would made the ranges a little bit different as voltages such as 1.8, 2.7 and 3.3 volts are more common than old TTL levels. The 0-10 ohms range however, was perfect for continuity.