I agree with your sentiment, and I am comforted by competition balancing things out. I think these price distortions are coming from companies with less competition (or they're just losing out on customers!) Most competitive software applications are offered for free (social media, web browsing, word processing) no matter how wealthy the users are, because nobody would pay more for an equivalent product.
This is definitely a good argument for encouraging competition and increased price transparency.
This is definitely a good argument for encouraging competition and increased price transparency.