You do raise interesting points, Speakeasy. I guess the real question is how much actually goes into that $300 that you spend on a piece of software. How much does Sony pay for the coders, marketing, support staff, etc.? How much profit does Sony need to make in order to justify the next version, much less the cost for point releases?

My first reaction at a $1500 price tag for Adobe Creative Suit is like yours. But, there's a remarkable amount of software in there, each being quite powerful. Look at what you can do with a tool like Photoshop. Never having used the GIMP, I can't be sure, but I suspect it's nowhere near as powerful. Dreamweaver? Same thing.

It's funny how we can easily justify $10/pill for new medicines because of the development costs, but for software (having a much lower distribution, and little repeat business) we balk.

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