I've always thought the struggle of people not wanting to pay for software or expecting you to go out of your way for free comes primarily from the fact that fo

I've always thought the struggle of people not wanting to pay for software or expecting you to go out of your way for free comes primarily from the fact that for things like software (but this also applies to art) there is no physical product. Of course, this is just unfounded speculation on my part, but I feel as though there is some kind of sub-conscious thought, brought about by years of being taught that generally speaking, things that are larger or have fancier packaging are more valuable, and that exchanging money should result in something that you can hold and take stock of. Software (or really anything in the digital space), while being something that we can cognitively see, is not something we can hold or even try to accurately value using any rough method we usually come up with to do so. On top of that, digital goods are only ever seen as a finished product, and the average person can't fully comprehend the effort and time that goes into producing that finished product, meaning that effort expectations range from "click a button and it's done", to "I reckon I could make this in a weekend". Personally, I think this dissonance between better valuing something physical can be seen in peoples willingness to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for an iPhone, but absolutely refusing to pay 99 cents for an app for the iPhone you just bought.