And a difference in price that amortizes about the same.

That’s true for the consumer's wallet, but the 'amortization' breaks down when you look at the systemic cost.

In software, the 'cheaply made coat' equivalent (bloated frameworks, unoptimized dependencies) creates a massive technical debt that doesn't just affect the buyer—it affects the entire ecosystem's energy consumption and hardware requirements. The Seawolves devs weren't just saving money; they were respecting the constraints of the medium. When we treat resources as infinite because they are 'cheap,' we stop being engineers and start being assemblers.