I think his complaint is not that he has to pay money per se, but having to pay several thousand dollars. That's a bit much for an independent developer.
If you're making something which you sell for $50 or so you'd need 100 sales per year to just pay for the development environment. That also assumes that it took you less than a year to make said product.
Still ends up being a blocker when you're not sure how many copies of the product you'll sell.
Which doesn't necessarily mean you cannot get paid for it.
He's shopping around. When something is out of his budget it's natural to not buy.
And $500 is laughable small compared to developer salary. If it saves you half a day of work, you are covered