Why has Sony been using lossy compression in their raw files for the A7 and others?

As a software developer, the loss of data has always been inexcusable to me.

I don't understand who would make a decision to use lossy compression for files that encompass all information about a photo, as others have used lossless compression.  Yes, I understand that the file sizes would be huge because of the amount of information, due to the number of pixels the image sensor contains.

Surely, a person buying a camera with a sensor having more than 24 megapixels would understand what a huge problem it is to store and process the files.  Even the JPEG files would be huge, and they use lossy compression.  (Always keep your original JPEG file from the camera and work from it.)  This last bit is unfortunately impossible with the lossy raw file.  You're not getting all the data from the start.  Sad, that.