I would say it's misleading when it's in a paragraph which is broadly implying that a high gross profit % is a sign of profiteering. See the actual paragraph where the article compares the gross margin of SaaS against the NET margin of Visa/Mastercard.

> Some SaaS companies achieve gross profit margins of 75 to 90 percent, rivaling Windows in its monopolistic heyday. Even the reigning credit-card duopoly of Visa and Mastercard wield a mere 51 percent net margin.

I don't see how anyone can say the above statement or comparison isn't a bit misleading, as the Gross Margin of Visa and Mastercard will be closer to 100% than to 50%.

In reality it's unsurprising that software looks really profitable when you remove all the costs of developing the software.

In this article using it is very MISLEADING, exactly as Closi writes above.

Exercise: compare net profit of Visa/Master card to net profit of those "highly profitable" saas marvels.

Exercise two: compare gross profits of them.

Result: whole paragraph turns not being true while not aligned with the article opinion and showing actually opposite :-D

p.s. I do agree with the overall article :)