The "free" extension ends up costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.
When you buy a legitimate license, you pay for support. If your payment gateway stops working, the developer helps you fix it. With a nulled script, you are entirely on your own. Forums where you found the download are not help desks; they are distribution hubs. If your store crashes because of a nulled extension, you may end up paying a freelancer more to fix the issue than the original module cost. opencart nulled
The typical thought process: “Why pay $49 for a theme when I can get it for free? I’ll pay later when my store makes money.” The "free" extension ends up costing hundreds or