[JustSomeNobody]

> Because giving something more to the customer would not cost them anything.

Even if that were true, so what? Some customers are willing to trade less features for less money. It doesn't matter that other features are present but disabled. Those customers got exactly what they paid for. They're not getting cheaped out on.

[drucik]

One thing is trading features for money, the other is artificially crippling the product just so you can release a cheaper version. For what, to justify unreasonably high price for complete version?

The second part sounds kinda like “They don’t know they got screwed, so it’s completely fine”.

[JustSomeNobody]

They didn't get screwed. They paid for X features. That's not getting screwed. The fact that +Y features are turned off is of absolutely zero consequence.

[jacobr1]

This is like the trolley problem of software licensing:

Scenario 1: Product has 3 features at x Price. New license is created with 4 features at price x+y

Scenario 2: Product has 3 features at x+y Price. Slimmed down license is created for a product 3 features at x price.

People applaud the former order, and cringe at the latter, but (at least in this artificial description, after the second option is available, the scenarios are equivalent. But something about loss aversion seems to trigger a moral sentiment.