Agree; very strange. Fine dining is a luxury, great software can pay for itself many times over.

Another way the analogy works, though: people hate paying for either with their own money. It's easier to spend when your company (or client) is paying for it.

You just described the core of the analogy: experience.

There are many cases where I and others choose much more expensive applications to which there are fine inexpensive (or free) alternatives. Just knowing the amount of “unnecessary” design or development work may be enough to increase pleasure of use.

Of course, the extra work may also have directly beneficial effects, functional, esthetic, or otherwise. Fine dining tends to be tasty.

Agreed. Plenty of free programs do the job, but "costs" one way or another (ex.: ads). I'll pay (more) for programs which improve the experience by not distracting me with ads or irritating user interfaces (looking at you SONY). I'm old enough to start realizing life is finite; better to pay more for a good experience on top of getting something done (be it remote data access or topping off my nutrition for the day).

The short answer: it's why Apple is making boatloads of cash. "But you can get an equivalent machine for a fraction of the price!" arguments abound; nonetheless, its that "fine dining" attention to detail which rakes in tens of billions of $$$ profit per quarter.

Only you have to pay for fine dining (either literally or reciprocally) whereas much great software is free.

Well, Apple "fanboys" certainly like to talk about the experience of a software product.

There is definitely an emotional factor to software choice.