You have to remeber this was long before the "A computer on every desk" era of mas market asia supply chains. The computer itself was a major investment. An App

You have to remeber this was long before the "A computer on every desk" era of mas market asia supply chains. The computer itself was a major investment. An Apple II with a floppy disk set you back over $4K. Add a functional printer for another $1K at least, not including the parralel port addin card needed to communicate with it. So software was a low volume business. On the upside, in those days often free telephone support was included. And this wasn't some call center person reading from a script either. You actually called the company helpline and some knowledgeable person would help you out whatever the problem. In today's market, low volume business software is still expensive, I'd even argue much more expensive than it was in those days.