> But at some point, this goes beyond saving a few bucks: it becomes performance art.
Love it. I appreciate the humor and good example behind that.
It's entirely likely the company is spending more money on staff time, than on the product.
I also cannot even imagine running mission-critical stuff on free trials (I have heard of it, before. I think Adobe was successfully sued, once, because someone created an image in their free trial, and then, couldn't open it, after the trial expired).
If I were one of that company's customers, I'd be fairly concerned.