I 100% agree. In fact, even in the original C/Unix versus Lisp/Lisp machines that were mentioned in Richard's Gabriel "The Rise of Worse is Better" article, C and Unix were inexpensive compared to Lisp implementations and Lisp machines. Unix's relatively liberal licensing rules in the 1970s and early 1980s helped lead to its embrace in academia, and it also gained a footing in industry, especially with the rise of Unix workstations from companies such as Sun.
Another example is how C++ and Java, but not Smalltalk, became the dominant object-oriented programming languages in the 1990s, despite Smalltalk being older and (debatably) being closer to Richard Gabriel's "right thing". There were affordable C++ implementations from Borland and Microsoft, and Sun released the Java Development Kit for free. However, the leading Smalltalk implementations of the 1990s were much more expensive. Perhaps had there been a Borland Turbo Smalltalk or a Microsoft Visual Smalltalk in the 1990s, maybe things would have turned out differently.
March 7, 1988 — "Smalltalk/V 286 is available now and costs $199.95, the company said. Registered users of Digitalk's Smalltalk/V can upgrade for $75 until June 1."
September 1991 — "Smalltalk/V code is portable between the Windows and the OS/2 versions. And the resulting application carries no runtime charges. All for just $499.95."
(Advert on the last page of "The Smalltalk Report")
September 1991 — "Digitalk, Inc. announced new versions of Smalltalk/V DOS and Smalltalk/V Mac that include royalty-free runtime. Smalltalk/V Windows and Smalltalk/V PM are already royalty free. … Prior to this new policy, there was a per-copy charge for runtime applications."
Another example is how C++ and Java, but not Smalltalk, became the dominant object-oriented programming languages in the 1990s, despite Smalltalk being older and (debatably) being closer to Richard Gabriel's "right thing". There were affordable C++ implementations from Borland and Microsoft, and Sun released the Java Development Kit for free. However, the leading Smalltalk implementations of the 1990s were much more expensive. Perhaps had there been a Borland Turbo Smalltalk or a Microsoft Visual Smalltalk in the 1990s, maybe things would have turned out differently.