A lot of people are short-sighted and self-centered. It's completely and totally rational to buy this product if you're billing at $75/hr and this tool saves you 10+ hours that you couldn't justify billing.
Some people just don't "get it" - that you must produce something of value before you can consume, and that every exchange must leave everyone better off. This is what used to upset me about the software pirates, torrenters, etc. It'll all catch up in the end though, so no need to over-analyze people like this.
When you're at work, you typically just have to use the tools the rest of the team does. Then when you are at home, working on a side project... it's essentially a hobby and saving time in a hobby is just a 'nice to have'.
The 50% off on the other hand brings it down to where I'm willing to pay for it. So I did.
I always ask my team, how is that as developers we always want free software but yet want a salary hike every year as a software programmer!