I agree with most of your post, but not witht his part. Only because users have high demands (in terms of technology) and/or prefer free (as in freedom) software doesn't mean they're cheapskates.

Quite on the contrary, both the N900 and the N9 are high-priced devices and hardly to be found in "plus a free N9"-contracts. So we are consumers who do pay for technology and gadgets; a lot. There may be some of us, as in every market segment, who think that €0,90 for an application is too much... but I'm certain there's not more of those people in the Maemo community than there are among iOS or Android users.