but I have to defend Microsoft. I really do use their products daily, and I’m a developer.
So I need access to development tools, and they cost me around 1300 € / year. And that is a very reasonable price for what they provide. I understand the prices for IDES to some extent, but I feel some are really far too expensive.
Examples Delphi: https://www.software-express.de/hersteller/embarcadero/delphi/
Instantiations VASmalltalk https://www.instantiations.com/vast-platform/pricing/
The prices for Windev are decent, but the support is so bad, that I consider dropping it:
https://windev.com/pcsoft/order-online.php
Even if it works quite nicely Lispworks is expensive too: (you do not have a large library base you can use for it): https://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html

So I really spend a lot of money on development tools but to be honest, the best price/quality is delivered from Microsoft.

Yeah, I guess you can get something cheaper on Linux, but I can’t really tell how it compares to the MS Ecosystem. Maybe Java is a really mighty contender, but I can’t tell.