"How long is a piece of string? It's impossible to answer that question. But, if I
had to guess... in my experience, the string is 19 inches long."
This is the kind of thing a lot of consultants seem to post, including the anecdotes of clients going with the cheap guys and the project failing. At the end of the day, the OP's answer is no more convincing then the hypothetical "outsource to Pakistan for 1/10th the cost." I think it's a consequence of someone trying to "sell" to an inappropriate market. If you expect to pay $120 for a mattress, sitting you down and lecturing you on why you need a $1,200 mattress is unlikely to convince you. If you expect to pay $10 for a meal, a $100 restaurant will not be getting your business. This post is the chef hanging out with other chefs and restaurant people to have a chuckle at those lame tourists who expect to pay $10 for a meal. The problem is that you are dealing with people who don't go to restaurants. They're comparing eating out to things they do know about like buying food in a shop.
The reality is that pricing development is tricky. Getting an "app" developed if you know nothing about making software is tricky, even if you are willing to pay "well". A lot of projects fail. A lot of projects are not realistic to begin with. Cost, development time, quality, the definition of MVP, exactly how "bespoke" a project is, etc. all vary hugely. Quality is not always correlated to price. You can pay $60k for your MVP and have that die too. Developers will blame the clients and the clients will blame the developers.
This is the kind of thing a lot of consultants seem to post, including the anecdotes of clients going with the cheap guys and the project failing. At the end of the day, the OP's answer is no more convincing then the hypothetical "outsource to Pakistan for 1/10th the cost." I think it's a consequence of someone trying to "sell" to an inappropriate market. If you expect to pay $120 for a mattress, sitting you down and lecturing you on why you need a $1,200 mattress is unlikely to convince you. If you expect to pay $10 for a meal, a $100 restaurant will not be getting your business. This post is the chef hanging out with other chefs and restaurant people to have a chuckle at those lame tourists who expect to pay $10 for a meal. The problem is that you are dealing with people who don't go to restaurants. They're comparing eating out to things they do know about like buying food in a shop.
The reality is that pricing development is tricky. Getting an "app" developed if you know nothing about making software is tricky, even if you are willing to pay "well". A lot of projects fail. A lot of projects are not realistic to begin with. Cost, development time, quality, the definition of MVP, exactly how "bespoke" a project is, etc. all vary hugely. Quality is not always correlated to price. You can pay $60k for your MVP and have that die too. Developers will blame the clients and the clients will blame the developers.