I've seen tests cut for that reason. But I've more often seen tests get cut or skimped on or slip through the cracks due to internal team dynamics problems. If

I've seen tests cut for that reason. But I've more often seen tests get cut or skimped on or slip through the cracks due to internal team dynamics problems. If QA and engineering staff are organized into separate verticals, rather than being direct teammates that share a manager, then time that could have been spent on testing instead gets spent on bickering over who tests what and how. If different team members have different opinions on testing strategy, and dig in on their respective positions rather than coming to an understanding, then tests will slip through the gap between them. If senior team members don't think it's their responsibility to mentor (not browbeat!) less-experienced team members on good testing practice, then the correct tests won't get written. If the people in charge of architecture don't recognize the outsize influence they have on the cost of designing and implementing tests, then testing can indeed become too expensive. If people don't recognize that test cases are, first and foremost, a way of communicating and memorializing design specifications, and not just a clever way to run code in isolation, then the cost of maintaining them will go up and the value of maintaining them will go down, until people start to forget that there was ever a baby in all that bathwater in the first place. etc.