Am I the only one who remembers when $70 was cheap for anything development related? Either it's good enough to save you 5-10 minutes a day where it's obviously worth $70 or it's not, and isn't worth any price (well maybe a dollar or two if you are, say, a collector of git clients).
Exactly. I have a Bosch drill and I recently had a carpenter trying to convince me that I should have spent three times as much on a Makita. He was basically trying to show me that the cheaper drill was a false economy. Its hilarious in software how much time we waste dealing with poor tools. Some free tools are excellent but in many cases spending some money will save you so much time and effort, enabling you to make more money and giving some of that to the developers. Wins all round.
The problem isn't the cost in money, it's the cost in time and inconvenience. It sort of manifests in two ways. First, I build my professional workflow around a tool that can simply cease to exist in a few days/weeks/months/years...it puts me at the mercy of the maker of the tool, often needlessly. Second, software that costs money tends to be closed source, which is at odds with community efforts that can improve and shape the software over time, as well as maintain it should the original developer move on. So those issues are the problem, not the $70.
Is this an argument against my point? I'm not unwilling to pay for a tool -- I've even paid for Sublime which is free unless you choose to pay. Is there a reason I should feel compelled to pay for a tool, given a comparable free alternative?
