A lot of the time it’s about being lucky enough be able to have or form connections with rich stupid people. Those kinds are a lot more willing to throw insane amounts of money at someone/some company they vaguely know to do things they know nothing of but hear a lot about.
Or just working at a company that’s well-known in the area and deals with clients very intimately while the product is being created.
Sometimes charging more for the same service makes them want it more, to them it means it’s premium programming (as opposed to the off-brand wish dot com programming). But sometimes they demand disgracefully cheap yet world-class service and throw a tantrum when they can’t pay you $5 an hour for a full rebranded recreation of the Amazon web service.
if Kagi were open source sure, but it’s $10 a month and the CEO is kind of an asshole. And a generative-AI-bro (please don’t make me call them GAI-bros)
I’d rather stick to FOSS solutions