You are saying that monetizing software is not particularly different than other things.
I"m saying one difference is that lots of other things have a bigger market in which to operate. It is easier in a big market to get a small slice of the pie and be okay.
(it may not be easy to get the slice, but once you do, it's enough).
In developer tools, getting that small slice will still not be enough to be okay.
In other words, it is different from other fields - you say "there is an endless supply of businesses/orgs for which for which it is almost an insurmountable obstacle to get them to acknowledge something that they could be doing to better serve their own self-interests and then get their approval to take appropriate action."
That's true, but in other fields, to have a viable business, you don't have to get as many of these folks + whoever is left, to be successful enough.
In developer tools, you do, because the overall market is worth a lot less, and so are individual customers.
