Perhaps under some kind of “intuitive ethics”. From a consequentialist perspective this model provides more R & D funding for better microscopes and is therefore the morally right action. A utilitarianist would argue that the greater public benefits from more highly developed microscopes while only the owner of the microscope benefits from opensource software.
your company breaking it
Discontinuing support is not “breaking it”. As in the OP, the owner of the microscope is still using it - it’s their responsibility support continued use, not the manufacturer.
Profit must always go up
This is a redditism and only really true of venture capital funded corporations, primarily info tech. Almost guaranteed that a microscope manufacturing company is owned by a university and as such self-sustaining profit is perfectly adequate.
our brains are so broken by this.
This is hyperbole but suppose you’re really just saying that we’re accustomed to thinking about things in a certain way. I would argue that most commenters are indeed used to thinking about things in a capitalism = evil kind of way. Certainly there are grave shortcomings of capitalism, but it is not completely without virtue. Funding for research is extraordinarily difficult under socialism for example. The inherent sink or swim mandate of capitalism ensures productive research. There’s an argument to be made that while the capitalist approach seems wasteful because the microscope becomes superseded, a socialist approach would also be wasteful because there’s no motivation for efficient research and development.