Do you know anybody who got "hooked" or "baited" this way? Or is this just your impression looking at it from the outside? One datapoint: I've been developin

Do you know anybody who got "hooked" or "baited" this way? Or is this just your impression looking at it from the outside? One datapoint: I've been developing on the MS stack for a little over 15 years, paying for my own tools. I've never paid anything close to full price for any of it. Patricks's assessment of reality is a lot closer to the mark than yours. Microsoft really does want developers for their platform more than they want developers' money. All their stuff has price tags, but they lots of people on their payroll whose only job in life is to make sure nobody pays the price listed on those tags.