Seems like a tradeoff between fixed assets versus variable assets. Writing code that doesn't change for years is a fixed asset. UX is a fixed asset. Somewhat li

Seems like a tradeoff between fixed assets versus variable assets. Writing code that doesn't change for years is a fixed asset. UX is a fixed asset. Somewhat like the construction cost of putting up a building. Maintaining the code and data is a variable asset. Somewhat like maintaining the building. Variable costs scale with the number of users. With OSS, fixed assets are often overvalued. All of the R&D to get the UX and algorithms working well is easily copied. So, monetization relies on variable costs. Frequent updates. Data hosting. Ironically, buggy and obscure code helps monetization. I almost became a developer of a successful database product. I attended one of their conferences. That's when I learned that the company made half of its money from consulting. It rammed home a joke I heard from an employee at Lotus Development: job security through obscurity. I left the conference dissuaded. I recall a game developer had a deferred software release. You could download last year's game engine. But, to have access to the current engine (and thus influence its direction), you had to pay.