I'm not saying the F-35B should be canceled. That would be dumb. All the money has been poured into the project, and the thing exists and works, and even provides some kind of capability that wasn't there before.
Just saying that in a hypothetical world in the early 90'ies (a quick wikipedia look says that the STOVL JSF can be traced back at least to a 1992 USMC/USAF project that eventually morphed into the JSF), if it would have been decided back then that, nope, we're not gonna do a follow-up to the Harrier, then navies that are currently looking at the F-35B would have decided to either upgrade existing small carriers with catobar and/or ordering new carriers with them. And I think in that case the total cost could have been cheaper. Yes, somewhat more expensive carriers, but cheaper planes and much less R&D cost.
Just saying that in a hypothetical world in the early 90'ies (a quick wikipedia look says that the STOVL JSF can be traced back at least to a 1992 USMC/USAF project that eventually morphed into the JSF), if it would have been decided back then that, nope, we're not gonna do a follow-up to the Harrier, then navies that are currently looking at the F-35B would have decided to either upgrade existing small carriers with catobar and/or ordering new carriers with them. And I think in that case the total cost could have been cheaper. Yes, somewhat more expensive carriers, but cheaper planes and much less R&D cost.