At the risk of being downvoted, this illustrates why paying for software is sometimes cheaper than "free" software.
> paying for software is sometimes cheaper than "free" software
Note that the original meaning of the term "Free Software" refers to liberty, not price: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
Can you show me an example of "free"-as-in-liberty software, that the creator(s) nevertheless charge(s) money for?
Textual¹ is open-source but sells the precompiled app. Keka² has the app available for free on GitHub but charges for it on the Mac App Store, to support development.
¹ IRC client for macOS: https://github.com/Codeux-Software/Textual
² Un/archiver for macOS: https://github.com/aonez/Keka