And, if I recall correctly, in the '90s, you had to pay for developer tools for Windows. (Or Mac, but Windows was, indeed, mostly your choice in a computer.) Today, every mainstream computer shipped—Mac and Windows—has a dizzying variety of free-as-in-beer development environments available for them, many also free-as-in-freedom.
Yes. Developer tools (and consumer software generally) were quite expensive. A typical compiler from Microsoft was hundreds of dollars. (Borland drove pricing down somewhat.) I forget what an MSDN subscription cost but it wasn't cheap.
