Most people would agree that for many criteria the more expensive one would be better than the mass-produced one, and yet we've long passed the age of "ask a local woodworker or do it yourself".
Maybe software is the same and shareware and indie software was just an outlier in the first place. spend a month building it, then make free copies and try to sell (labor costs) / (copies) because no one would pay just the labor costs.
But now where does FLOSS software come into the picture, competing with indie software on price (free), often quality (sometimes best in show), less of a bus factor (traditionally small indie teams) and repairability (the source code is there).
So yeah, maybe call me pessimistic or jaded or just an asshole, but there's a reason I have earned money writing software for about 25 years and never even thought about making and selling an indie product because I never felt it was feasible. Happy for all the people for whom it has worked so far.