Hacker News Reader

A lot of software (most?) don't have zero marginal cost.

Every new customer (organisation!) that is onboarded must have their own customisations to make it useful for them.

The real business is doing this by charging per hour to do those customisations. The base software is more or less a made up marketing story to be able to get a foothold. The most successful and established companies can charge a large up front fee (license).

View on HN

> Every new customer (organisation!) that is onboarded must have their own customisations to make it useful for them.

Meanwhile Adobe just rakes in 10-50$ per month on Creative Suite plan subscriptions from individuals and small businesses all over the world who are happy just to get access to the software.

I agree but I am thinking this might be result of "being able to charge customer" approach. This model may be easiest way to charge every customer instead of haggle with customers with pay for base software which price is (f.e. wordpress) or often quickly falls to zero. More optimal way to create such software would be without customisations, but you cant do that cause you cant charge enough.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com