I do not intend to demonstrate that something, whatever it might be, magically comes for free.
You made several mistakes in that statement.
1. You claimed that only publisher funded developers are professionals, while those who are self funded or backed by other means (like investors or crowdfunding), i.e. independent (=indie) developers are not professionals. That's an insult to many truly professional people. There is no dependency on publisher funding to be a professional.
2. You assumed that publisher funded production doesn't care about this issue. Do you think they don't have to balance their budgets? Just because they are publisher funded doesn't mean they have infinite resources and doesn't mean that those publishers are happy about extra costs.
I.e. everyone cares about it and nobody normal likes it. The only ones who like lock-in are those crooked vendors who push it on everyone else. Also, if someone doesn't care about the industry progressing - they can't be called professionals.
Those are mistakes on your point of view, not mine.
Of course there are production and development costs, like in any other business, however the industry doesn't get crazy about FOSS and stuff like that.
My point of view steams from having had the opportunity to get a glimpse how the AAA game development industry works.
Have you ever been there, instead of trying to advocate for everyone cares about costs and free mantra?!
Just go attend a GDC, ask around how many devs care about your point of view.
Based on my experience attending them, I bet the answer will be very few.
Term AAA is ambiguous. Please define it. If you mean publisher funded (a common meaning), then see above. If you mean big budget, then your remark about independent developers is invalid as well (there are independent studios with big budget games). Anyway, I don't see how any of that is related to professionalism. Funding method or budget size has nothing to do with it.
> Of course there are production and development costs, like in any other business
Yes, overcoming lock-in and duplication of effort add extra costs. That's exactly what I was saying above. It equally affects big and small budget projects, as well as publisher funded and independent studios. Saying they don't care about extra costs is simply ignoring the reality.
> How the AAA game development industry works.
Still ambiguous, but let's assume you mean AAA = publisher funded (since you contrasted it with independent studios before).
Simple example - most legacy publishers don't even release games for multiple APIs (such as OpenGL), because of costs. I.e. they are hostages of lock-in. That exactly demonstrates the issue above, and the fact that it has a direct impact.
So saying that no one cares about it (or no one is impacted by this tax on the indstry) is completely wrong.
