People also do not know enough about the free alternatives. Free software projects can not put commercials in the newspapers or TV, simply because they can not afford that. Commercial software, on the other hand, gets a lot attention in media through both commercials and articles in magazines. Until recently free software has been an unknown concept also in the mainstream press, which is used to publishing articles based on press releases and other material that the sales divisions of commecial software companies send them. Many people also find it easier to trust commercial products created by well known companies whose products they are used to hearing about, instead of an inpersonate group of internet-connected developers behind the free software.
People are also keen on getting paid support.
They pay money to have a guarantee that somebody is responsible when things go wrong with the product. They get a number to call to. In practice, the people working in the support have usually all too little knowledge of the product to be able to solve the user's problem. It is quite common to spend hours in phone with support people, and get no useful help. We feel that too often using commercial support is waste of time.