No one “loves” Teams, but honestly it serves its purpose for us at no cost.
No one loves OneDrive but it works.
I think people underestimate how much work it would take to integrate services, train people, and meet compliance requirements when using a handful of the best in class products instead of MS Suite.
But with SQL Server, on the other hand, I think you are right. It is a good piece of software. But it also has high quality competition from multiple vendors. Some of it enterprise (Oracle, DB2), some of it FOSS (Postgres, MySQL). Because of this, it has to be better quality to survive… they couldn’t bundle it to get market share, it actually had to compete.
Of course there's a cost, its just hidden and you are forced to pay it. Microsoft used its monopoly position to move into a new market.
The person approving the $1 million dollar budget item doesn’t really care that Teams isn’t “free” in the sense that there is no free lunch, and while they perhaps have moral qualms of antitrust, that’s outside their purview. We’re locked into Office suite and right now there is no extra charge for Teams.
Microsoft did a massively illegal thing (again) and got away with it
Time to hold companies responsible for their suppliers.