I wonder how the poo-pooing of anything that isn't a $10m+ funding or $1bn+ market cap business on sites like HN encourages people to think "well, hey, perhaps I should go join a business like that if mine can't be."
Poo-pooing is what babies do in their diapers.
On second thought, maybe you did have it right ;)
I'd look to the open source world for good geek tools, honestly. I think expecting people to sell them to us in the app stores just won't work. No one will buy this stuff at the $50/seat the developers would have to charge to avoid the Google and Facebook buyouts.
The only way to make that stuff is to sell it as some kind of "cloud" service where you make your money on eyeballs elsewhere.
And
No one will buy this stuff at the $50/seat the developers would have to charge to avoid the Google and Facebook buyouts.
Can you please re-state? For some reason I can't follow.
1. The minimum price to sustain development as standalone software is $50/seat.
2. Consumers will not pay $50/seat for this software.
3. Some businesses have been successful with cloud-based monetization.
4. Therefore, the best chance for success is to sell a cloud service, rather than standalone software.