Exactly. Someone, somewhere, at some point, paid for that software.
Can't make something out of nothing.
Discussion
How was the Universe created?
The classic word for universe was cosmos ("to adorn, dress" or "to order and arrange") which I think is instructive here.
Asking how something was created implies a creator. Genesis provides your answer.
Seeing as you are asking in light of the claim that something cannot come from nothing, this is both true and not true as it concerns the cosmos. God created it ex nihilo (creatio ex nihilo) or *out of nothing* as it concerns material reality but the principle of *something cannot come out of nothing* is still true in that all things find their origin in Christ— "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." John 1:3.
"In the beginning there was the word..." Our cosmic software cost 1 thing, a word. An utterance from God. God could've decided not to God.
But that is not the point. The monetary/opportunity cost is always compensated, someone is doing it for the greater good, someone for their ego and someone is payed money to do it because it just make economical sense... Freedom on the philosophical level (forced or not forced based on the license) is what matters.
P. S.: Check the herd of FreeBSD maintainers and committers Netflix is keeping...
What does that change about my argument?
Everything, "There's no such thing as a free lunch" means exactly what it says—nothing is free, at most it can be included with other service, but there is a cost. The lunch is physical and didn't materialized from thin air.
But free software can be used, replicated, reused, modified, sold, etc. because the original author allowed it. It has nothing to do with the cost and everything with the concept of freedom of ideas.
So it is not free as in lunch or beer but free as in speech or ideas.
There's no actual guarantee they made any form of payment