You're right, but they make money off of pack sales. How do you get high-demand cards? You buy packs and pull them, or you buy them from card shops, which get them from packs they bought. Then they have to restock, so they open more packs to get the card. Pokémon is still making money.
I don't think they make their money on packs as you would think. The second market and other stores buy the cases of cards from Pokemon and then sell them to us. Once a store buys the packs, Pokemon makes their money, then the packs are sold to us for about 40 to 50% more, since they buy boxes around 45-50 bucks each. A player who is wanting to get a Tapu Lele or Decidueye-GX would just buy the card. Places that have weekly Pokemon tournaments will also give out packs of GR as prizes or as the buy in pack, so they move product. Parents and other people will also just buy loose packs every once in a while. Most card shops that sell Pokemon have no more than three booster boxes at a time throughout the life of its three or four months, only ever having a case during the release period.
If they make a promo Tapu Lele-GX (which I think they should do), they can sell the card directly and
still move GR packs, as well as other bulk items (like coins, figures, sleeves, etc.) and make a profit. This also means they will still continue to support their product because the set still has two other Tapu Lele-GX and the hyper rare Decidueye-GX, which is still a chase card, not including the other playable cards so to assume people
only buy GR packs to get Tapu Lele-GX is incorrect because no one really complains about pulling anything a GX but two.