Comment by blincoln

FWIW, the traditional engineering argument in this case is:

By selling the same hardware with multiple tiers of functionality artificially locked behind increased prices, it becomes profitable to develop and manufacture products that would otherwise not make economic sense. This occurs when there aren't enough potential buyers of the full-featured version at a price that makes the full-featured version on its own profitable, but the sum of all customers at all price/functionality tiers is profitable. i.e. this model results in products that would otherwise not exist.

I have mixed feelings about that argument. The main one being that it's not much of a stretch to go from that to "the full-featured version sold at price X would be profitable, but because most customers are willing do do without the higher tiers of functionality, we can make even more money by selling a reduced-functionality version at price X, and charge a premium for the extra features", and it sure seems like that's what a lot of American businesses do. But I assume at least some of the time, it really is the former and not the latter.