> You're making quite a vast assumption that service contracts mean the software is unusable without them. Red Hat Linux is just one counterexample.
No. I'm not. I'm basing that on the tautology that consumers of "free" software who purchase expensive service contracts spend their money purchasing expensive service contracts.
Software is free in the same way that air conditioning at the mall is free, the hugs handed out by the "free hugs" guy are free, the way that the privilege of watching advertisements on TV are free. Somebody is spending time and money making this software, because they think they are going to get more out of it than they put into it (either tangibly or intangibly (except for that TempleOS guy, who does it for the voices in his head))
And this still doesn't change anything about the EpiPen. There's a consumer surplus, and the price is increased to maximize capture of consumer surplus regardless of the cost in human lives. I don't care how free software is, the price on EpiPens is going up to maximize profit.
To frame this as a simple dichotomy, would you rather live in a world where people die to maximize profit, or a world where regulation is applied to reduce human suffering and death?