10x price increase? Sounds like a classic Computer Associates move. I think when Broadcom bought CA they also acquired this aspect of CA’s culture, and are now applying it to products which never had anything to do with CA.
If you see an enterprise software product starting to decline, as VMWare has in the cloud era, then sometimes the "best" (but evil) thing to do is just milk your customers as hard as you can. Just squeeze every penny out of people who are stuck with you. Any migration of a large enterprise will take several years so you can just get all that money in one big go and then shoot the product in the head.
If you see a tenant starting to complain, like that one who’s been in your building for years, then sometimes the "best" (but evil) thing to do is just milk 'em for all they’re worth. You jack up the rent—ten times what they’re paying now. They ain't got no choice. Ain’t no place for them to go, so you just squeeze every penny outta ‘em. It’ll take ‘em years to find a new spot, so you got plenty of time to take all that cash in one big lump. And once you’ve wrung ‘em dry, you just tell 'em, 'Thanks for your business,' and throw 'em out. Nothing personal, kid. Just how the game’s played.