Ah, there’s the capitalist’s circular religious belief, if it’s profitable it must be good, and it’s good because it’s profitable.
Except some of the best things in life are not profitable, and some of the most profitable models are not good (such as Facebook/Google’s privacy invasions and the ad-driven model).
To think that subscribers pay money because they see a “reasonable value exchange” is to be completely blind to the incentives behind many big ticket software purchases. Managers pick IBM/Microsoft/Slack just so they can’t get fired for failed boondoggles or because they don’t care about anything except maintaining the status quo. Startups choose certain SaaS tools because they’re part of the same VC-funded slosh-it-around party. There’s just so many millions to be made by selling to fly-by-night startups or clueless bureaucratic enterprises or government that you don’t actually need to be innovative or useful to “make it” in todays tech world. You just need to know how to play the game. There are exceptions and true innovators of course, like OpenAI or Apple or AirBnB but those are rare.
