If I did, it was not my intention. The summation of my email to him was pretty much that I have a young daughter that I want to teach video production to. That I think it would be best for her if I could teach her some of the advanced features and I inquired if they had an educational discount program. The last line asked if they did not would they consider selling me a basic license and upgrade me to pro with the explicit agreement that it was to only be used for educational purposes. I feel that I am pretty good at regulating my tone and did not use words that would appear that I felt entitled to such an arrangement. I was polite in my request.

While, my tactic is debatable, I don't think the content or how I approached it was a factor. Further, I have said on multiple occasions that I did not walk away with sour grapes about the exchange, he was totally within his right, I was the one asking for a favor. That is not in dispute, and I was in no way shape or form upset about his decline. The only thing I walk away with was that I felt that I it was better that I had that exchange before a sum of money was involved.

My general take from the approach you describe, paying attention to the "smallest" detail of a deal (and/or bringing ever-smaller details into the deal) is reaching for more and more tenuous reasons to neg the vendor. It's analogous to reducing your tip at a restaurant because your water glass was not promptly refilled, and then further when the silverware is not perfectly parallel..

That's the first that I have heard that it is crazy to negotiate. I have always though it was crazy to not negotiate. That is what sales is a negotiation. I understand that there is an amount of developers who do not like to negotiate. But that does not negate that for a good deal of business negotiation is business as usual.

Naturally, a retort would be that he doesn't think enough of his daughter's education to pay whatever it takes to get the tools to do so.

It's not a retort I would use or allow to come from my organization. Doing so could be seen a comment on ones character, an unnecessary one at that. I guess I see the world different from other developers. I see these kind of requests as the cost of doing business and they don't bother me. I also see the cost of reputation being valuable to me.

We all see the world differently, it's just that communication and, dare i say, negotiation depends on the participants operating with similar terms. In your example you're trying to tip the balance of perfect information by causing the provider to have to account for a question of how legitimate your discount request it. Which it really isn't, because you aren't really that kind of institution.

I hope I'm explaining myself well enough, it's just that it's not a good negotiation if people are exaggerating their terms. Sure, "ask for twice what you want so the compromise is closer to your target number," but this isn't a foolproof strategy.

You never know unless you ask. His response was closer to no go to hell though (just to be clear, he did not tell me to go to hell) and that is what made me chose the path I did.

I am not put off by negotiations, and very much enjoy it when a client negotiates with me, so long as they don't become combative or disrespectful. It gives me an opportunity to show them in detail how much value I am providing for their money. I find that the client that negotiate with me and then see the value seem to be my best customers. The second vendor did just that, took time to show me their value and that is why I chose them. You learn a lot of valuable information about people in negotiations and that was really the point I was trying to drive home, that some times people don't negotiate just to get the best price. Sometimes they see it as a path to insightful information. It's the reason I always negotiate. If that makes me a toxic customer, so be it, but I like to know the paying field before I commit to anything in life.

As well just for the record on this one from your other post:

It's analogous to reducing your tip at a restaurant because your water glass was not promptly refilled, and then further when the silverware is not perfectly parallel..

I have a friend, who does this and I get extremely mad when I am at dinner with him and he does. He does it as a way of rationalizing reducing his tip, he is very cheap and he is a multimillionaire. After several occasions I refused to eat dinner with him, unless I paid and covered tip. He is disconnected from the fact that not everyone has buckets of cash and that that money is a lot more valuable to someone on waiter wages than his principals should be to him. My friend is a good guy, his cheapness just gets the best of him, some times. Anyways, the point I was getting at, is I would never intentionally do that to someone.

I believe you that you did not intend to, but looking at the writing, that's what it is.