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Comment by saagarjha | Hacker News Reader

> Another point of evidence is the lack of luxury software products. People spend absurd amounts of money on jewellery, handbags and cars, but I can’t think of a piece of software with an even remotely similar price tag.

The author isn't looking hard enough: professional software frequently goes for many thousands of dollars.

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It's also a bit of a silly point, even if no expensive software existed. Cars will always be more expensive than, say, bakery items...

Author here:

There's a difference between a high price tag and a high price tag for the sake of signaling wealth / social status. I wouldn't classify professional software as luxury goods (such as jewelry, watches, etc).

But agree that I should have phrased that sentence differently.

Neat blog.

> The author isn't looking hard enough: professional software frequently goes for many thousands of dollars.

One cannot usually show off software like hardware. In this WFH world that could change. But for now I don't see people paying top dollar for B2C software until there is some visibility.

There was the "I Am Rich" app: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich

An app can be expensive not because is a luxury software but because the complexity and the market size, this determines the development cost and the expected revenues per copy.

You don't even have to look that hard; micro-transaction and in-app purchases are mostly all about bragging and showing success

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