there were at least a dozen other exchanges before coinbase. in fact Coinbase didn't even exist back in 2010, it was created 2 years later in 2012.
by the way the first bitcoin exchange was called bitcoinmarket.com which is no longer around.


it wasn't expensive since back then 10k bitcoin was worth around the same value as Pizzas. it is like saying 0.002BTC is too expensive today because bitcoin will some day be worth $1 million.