Verily I say unto thee, that Phil Da Lick! spake thusly:
Ah the old 90/10 argument.
Personally I'd rather spend /more/ to have something /better/ that
subsequently lasts longer too, provided of course that it /is/ actually
better, and that I don't have to compromise my Freedom in the process
(e.g. "IP"). Of course this assumes that market prices bear any
correlation to quality, which invariably they don't. Prices are
determined by the maximum consumers are prepared to pay before switching
to a competitor, assuming there is one, rather than the actual costs
involved.
Of course this cost/time consideration is just yet another reason why
Free Software is better for both businesses and users, since there is no
pressure on the developers to meet a schedule, and thus they can ensure
that the result meets their original expectations. This software can
then be used by businesses at a vastly reduced cost to that of
proprietary software, and because it is invariably more efficient;
secure and stable (due to both the time and collaboration factors), it
requires less overhead to deploy such software, thus improving that
company's margins. And end-users then benefit from better software /and/
better services from others who also use that software.
If physical products could be as easily fabricated at home as software,
then I think you'd find that would hold true for other products too,
economies of scale notwithstanding. Of course in a situation where such
things could be easily fabricated at home, economies of scale would be a
somewhat moot consideration, certainly for those who owned this
fabrication equipment.
