[rpnx]

I actually disagree. I think that people will pay more for higher quality software, but only if they know the software is higher quality.

It's great to say your software is higher quality, but the question I have is whether or not is is higher quality with the same or similar features, and second, whether the better quality is known to the customers.

It's the same way that I will pay hundreds of dollars for Jetbrains tools each year even though ostensibly VS Code has most of the same features, but the quality of the implementation greatly differs.

If a new company made their IDE better than jetbrains though, it'd be hard to get me to fork over money. Free trials and so on can help spread awareness.

[dsr_]

The Lemon Market exists specifically when customers cannot tell, prior to receipt and usage, whether they are buying high quality or low quality.

[disgruntledphd2]

Wow, that's actually a good argument for some kind of trial or freemium setup. Interesting.

[esafak]

That does not describe the current subscription-based software market, then, because we do try it, and we can always stop paying, transaction costs aside.

[wang_li]

> but only if they know the software is higher quality.

I assume all software is shit in some fashion because every single software license includes a clause that has "no fitness for any particular purpose" clause. Meaning, if your word processor doesn't process words, you can't sue them.

When we get consumer protection laws that require that software does what is says on the tin quality will start mattering.