CCC is so cheap because a ton of people put a ton of their time in without receiving compensation (or on a sponsoring companies time) and on top of that, other things are donated by companies (what do you think where the bandwith for the network comes from). Asking your question is akin to &quot;The linux kernel is available for free, why does photoshop cost 1000 USD?&quot; The congress is an outlier, so far out that it&#x27;s off the chart.