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Because without a legal contract to cover support, you don't have someone that contractually has to answer your call.

You might not care about this, and many don't. You're running the risk that the maintainers won't pack up shop and stop maintaining the project, and that you & your team will need to inherit the project.

Other way of looking at it, is that if you're a business, you always should pay for your software, even if it's open source. Because you will one way or another: through your team, or through the risk that free riding brings.

Support means you can get someone (or a minor army if necessary) on the phone or on the premise immediately

Platinum support means you can get C-level executives on the line.

Reputation and counter party risk all factor into evaluation and cost of support as well

> you can get someone (or a minor army if necessary) on the phone or on the premise immediately

That's "on the _premises_".

And there are a number of OSS support vendors; notably Red Hat.