I feel strongly about it because this mentality reduced the market of selling software tools to a niche, to the point that to earn money selling tools, we have to sell them to enterprise customers, the only ones willing to pay for software.
This is why most companies selling such software tools have switched their basic versions from "trial during X days/trial license" to free (beer), while trying to seduce developers to eventually pay for the full version.
You seem to feel strongly enough about this to repeat it nearly word-for-word in multiple comments. Trust me, every profession wants to pay less for its tools. And no one, in IT or out, is choosing their tools "regardless of quality".