Maybe you have it the wrong way round. My experience is limited but these Microsoft product's often make the back-end seem coincidental. If the developer only

Maybe you have it the wrong way round. My experience is limited but these Microsoft product's often make the back-end seem coincidental. If the developer only ever touches the rich GUI then that is the product that is actually valued. Making it completely free could devalue the product and allow non-Microsoft technologies to become dominant. People could seamlessly use Visual Studio to develop products that don't rely on MS products and barely even notice.