Because he had bad experiences. A brine-water heat pump can be cheap if you source it yourself through a trench collector.
I wouldn't say bad experiences. It's simply uneconomical if you don't install it yourself. I've also learned that gas doesn't always require collectors. For timber houses, they apparently aren't necessary, and then gas is unbeatable in price. But even so, you save good money with it and have very reliable technology. Unfortunately, heat pumps are still a bit away from that. With gas, you also don't have the legionella issue, always boiling hot water, and if the flow temperature needs to be a few degrees higher, it's no problem at all. With heat pumps, good night!