> Nothing to do with freedom. People are naturally cheap.

I don't think this is true. Look at bars. I can go to a liquor store and buy alcohol at a fraction of what it costs in a bar and invite my friends over to drink together. Yet, bars which charge a massive markup on the same exact alcohol, do not seem to be in danger of going out of business.

Or look at coffee. You can buy a bag of Starbucks coffee in the grocery store for $10 and it will make many pots of coffee, providing a single individual a cup of coffee a day for 2 weeks or more. Yet, on any given morning you can spot long lines of people eagerly waiting to pay 3 or 4 dollars for a single cup of the exact same coffee they could have made at home for one tenth the cost, that probably would have required less time and effort than going to Starbucks.

That's paying for convenience which is a different behavior.

When exactly would paying for an IDE extension NOT be paying for convenience?

What is the convenience?

- you don’t have to learn how to make all the variations of drinks each of your friends like

- you don’t have to stock ingredients for food/drinks you may not like or prepare often

- you can’t make a din without annoying the neighbours

- you don’t have to rent a space just to play loud music or dance

- you don’t have to make a music selection

- you don’t have to invite large numbers of people who don’t know each other to help make new connections

- you don’t have to clean up every time anyone pukes

Cheapness is freedom, from expending resources.

I'm not rich and a lot of paid tiers are targeting 5+ seat enterprise companies instead of individuals.