You point out something extremely important here: the ability to share work with other people. Tool-use tends to promote or limit networked effects. If I'm th

You point out something extremely important here: the ability to share work with other people. Tool-use tends to promote or limit networked effects. If I'm the only one who can afford Mathematica in a given context where I collaborate with other people, then we won't be using Mathematica. Simple as that. On the flip side: If I introduce a tool in a networked context, my enthusiasm may well end up converting dozens of other people. I think Wolfram could have built a much broader and more stable revenue base if they'd dropped the professional licenses by roughly 1/10 and gotten a bigger user base.