This is a good point. I actually always sort by price when selecting components — not just to be cheap, but also because less expensive components are generally more popular and widely used, which means they are better support, better availability and better longevity.
But — to all those who worry about price — I would suggest looking back and checking how many devices you actually built in the past? Was it singles, tens, perhaps hundreds? At these price points, how much would you save using a $1 uC instead of a $5 uC? Is it tens of dollars? Perhaps hundreds?
Now compare that to the cost of your time spent developing and maintaining the software. At any reasonable hourly rate you pick for yourself, you're probably better off going with the uC that has good software out of the box.
If you decide to build your devices in commercial quantities, that's when price optimization begins to matter, and somebody will care about fractions of a penny. But that somebody won't be you: going beyond single thousands involves a different set of skills.
Even in the 10s of thousands, these price differences should probably be a secondary issue for many commercial contexts... at least at the startup end of the game.
If you are producing a $40 microwave, smart bulb or somesuch... shaving dollars off component costs is operative. I think this supports your original point rather than detracts from it. This is the mass production game, a mostly big company game.
Microcontrollers have reached a cost point where the dynamic has inverted. The people who need to care about a new, cheaper-than-ever mc are large companies, not startups, hobbyists and niche product designers. There will be lots of exceptions, especially hobbyist use case... but generally.
This is a good point. I actually always sort by price when selecting components — not just to be cheap, but also because less expensive components are generally more popular and widely used, which means they are better support, better availability and better longevity.
But — to all those who worry about price — I would suggest looking back and checking how many devices you actually built in the past? Was it singles, tens, perhaps hundreds? At these price points, how much would you save using a $1 uC instead of a $5 uC? Is it tens of dollars? Perhaps hundreds?
Now compare that to the cost of your time spent developing and maintaining the software. At any reasonable hourly rate you pick for yourself, you're probably better off going with the uC that has good software out of the box.
If you decide to build your devices in commercial quantities, that's when price optimization begins to matter, and somebody will care about fractions of a penny. But that somebody won't be you: going beyond single thousands involves a different set of skills.