In Microsoft Land, the SQL Server team considers this an Enterprise feature, which basically translates to: "We added a couple of zeros to the price".

THIS, I feel, more than anything, meant that the Microsoft stack was just a dead end for many startups. The licensing cost for the database alone exceeded their revenue.

This was already crazy back then, but since then Microsoft has doubled down and increased SQL Server licensing. It is eyewateringly expensive now, and even their Enterprise customers are slowly starting to switch away from it.

They're slowly but surely turning SQL Server into Oracle.