This company receives so many candidates that the interviewer would have just ended the call and moved on to the next candidate.
I get the notion of making the point out of principle, but it’s sort of like arguing on the phone with someone at a call center—it’s better to just cut your losses quickly and move on to the next option in the current market.
And we, as software engineers, should also take that advice: it's better to just cut your losses quickly and move on to the next option in the current market.