Every time I hear of people complaining about paying for software I wonder what people on here do for a living. Is everyone on here getting paid for developing software that’s free?
You may find Kevin Kelly's post, "Technology wants to be free" (2007), interesting.
... five traits of networked technology – perfect market competition, price transparency, innovation sharing, collaboration, and expanding markets – ceaselessly push technology toward the free.
... There is an unarticulated assumption held by many people that the natural state of any created thing is expensive. Technology is believed to be born dear and costly, and it is only through relentless hard work that things can be made cheap. Indeed, according to this perspective, everything is naturally expensive, and would remain so, but for genius and sweat. This natural level of expense and scarcity can only be lowered by applying constant energy, favorable legislation, and technological vigilance, otherwise the price of a good may spring back up to its natural elevated level. God forbid a disaster or calamity collapses the system and allows the prices of everything to revert to their true unattainable price.