Another way to think about it is that if any piece of professional software should cost a lot, a super-specialized piece of software that is hard to duplicate, is a near industry standard, and is used almost exclusively by people with high bill rates should be expensive. But again, my point is: IDA costs a lot less than its place in the market suggests it should.

I'm not arguing that a capable free alternative is a bad thing. I think there's an industry business case study in what Hex-Rays could have done to keep this from happening, though.