[crispinb]

From all accounts Jon Skinner (the developer) makes a living, and has taken on at least one employee, so clearly enough users do pay for his purposes. Perhaps paying his bills by working on an extremely high quality product completely on his own terms is precisely what he wants from the venture? ST has been around for long enough to conclude that it's probably working for him.

I personally can't see how $80 could be considered 'expensive' for a professional tool. My tradie friends would love to be able to buy their most significant tools for so little. I'm not an ST user, and am at (or below) the bottom end of developer income, but wouldn't hesitate to pay that for such a well-crafted piece of software.