It would have cost the customer less to silently accept the breach and throw the software away than to report the bug and demand a remedy. Additionally, when the customer calls complaining about a serious bug, the publisher may or may not admit that the bug is material. Such purported disclaimers of express warranties are common in software licenses. These serve to prevent claims by customers by misleading them about their rights. The cost of proving that a defect is material can easily exceed the purchase price of the software.
Software publishers impose other transaction costs on customers who have defective products.
This is a toll call to a non-800 number. The customer pays in time and in telephone charges. Some publishers set this up with the specific intent of discouraging callers. A publisher may require the customer to provide specific hardware-related information that the customer cannot provide without opening his computer. A non-expert customer will have to pay someone to do this hardware troubleshooting.