The return you get from the population buying the products is extremely high and is better than making a good trade deal. So instead of having to put together trade routes that will dry out over time, you are making a good return for bringing the products to your hab instead.

The screen shot below shows my daily profits from my two level 10 Habs that I have built. I have read somewhere from the devs that upgrading your habs doesn't really make a difference.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1552485050

The sector has 14k population, with a single npc hab, so I am not sure exactly what the population of my habs is at.

Electronics - 2800 profit - 15 Elelectronics - 187 per unit - Best trade opportunity is 79.26 per unit (59.26 + Transport Fee of 20)

Tools - 1874 profit - 15 Tools - 124 per unit - Best trade opportunity is 65.88 (45.88+20)

Fuel - 939 profit - 13 Fuel - 72 per unit - Best trade opportunity is 23.31 (18.31+5)

Food - 2657 profit - 40 Food - 66 per unit - Best trade opportunity is 63.3 (43.3+20)

With the exception of food, the other products are going for twice as much at my habs than I can get with a trade run. The real benefit though is that these habs are buying these products every day with an unliminted amount of need, where my traders have basically maxed out the need of most stations in the area. So I can continuously get funds from these habs.

The ~8000 daily profits I get from the habs is completely paying for my factory costs which are around 5000 a day, which are pulling profits from other areas (NPC shipyard sales, etc), and as the population rises so will how much they buy from my production line.

So are habs so powerful that they make you filthy rich? Not really, but it is nice to have my production line competely paid for each day with a little profit to supliment my other revenue streams.