I actually really like the Bay area as pleasant place to be. My argument is that you shouldn't move there to start a company of the product/price/profit variety

I actually really like the Bay area as pleasant place to be. My argument is that you shouldn't move there to start a company of the product/price/profit variety. And this doesn't really have anything to do with cost. 37signals is a multi-million dollar company and we (including the founders) could certainly afford to move to San Francisco.