> Yes, but if you could get it for free that would be even better. It's a fantastic business model to charge premium for something that cost almost nothing.

Cost almost nothing? How much do you think was invested in research and development?

But hey, feel free to open a company, invest billions of your own money in research and then give everything away for free with no revenue whatsoever. Sounds like a great business model!

It does not cost me anything if someone else runs my software. I can still charge for it. The research and development is already paid for. The business plan goes something like this: 1) Buy software 2) Sell copies of it ... But it will not work good if other people start to make copies of it, so you make it a SaaS instead, having the software run in "the cloud" where only you can copy it.

> The research and development is already paid for.

That doesn't even make any sense. They aren't paid for, they are investments with an expectation of future profits. Paid for with shareholder's money.

Investors will be happy as long as the marginal cost to sell one additional copy is above zero. eg. you make a profit. How much they are willing to invest depend of how large the market is.