Depends on the context. If your operation is relaying a 20ms audio packet from one side of a call to another, 50µs to 20µs is the difference between handling 2

Depends on the context. If your operation is relaying a 20ms audio packet from one side of a call to another, 50µs to 20µs is the difference between handling 200 concurrent calls and handling 500 (per CPU, minus non-linear scaling with increasing CPUs and other overhead). Unlike the cost of hardware, which every customer would have to buy separately, the development cost can be spread out over many customers. If $50,000 of developer effort can save 50 customers $1000 on hardware, you've already broken even in a sense.