[hoistbypetard]

If one could sell software there in such a way that only people in that market could buy it at that price, the answer is obvious... software has effectively zero marginal cost per copy.

So if you could practically limit your market at a specified price in such a way that that offer doesn't spread to other markets, then every copy you sell in such places is still beneficial to you.

There are less cynical answers to the question, but you asked cynically.

[sarlalian]

How about a non-cynical answer. Software does not have effectively zero marginal cost per copy. It does have zero manufacturing cost per copy, however support is quite an expensive on-going cost. When you have a presence in multiple markets, you need localized support for different languages, and that is even more expensive. When you have different costs in different markets, you encourage users in more expensive markets to try and game the system, to minimize their costs. This sets up a potentially adversarial relationship with your users, and is mostly non-productive.

In the end this is a professional software suite, and running a business has some fixed costs. By comparison, Adobe's suite would cost much more per year.

[michaelmrose]

Well keeping on the cynical train. Parts of the world experiencing desperate poverty often not so coincidentally experience substantial inequality with the folks needing a professional tool not being so different economically from better off areas. If 90% of your market has no problem paying why would you not charge full price?

Next how do you keep Jane in Seattle and Bob in Houston from buying the poor market version? You can't really restrict it by language or locale people use all sorts of languages/settings in different parts of the world. Desktop computers don't have location and people could trivially block the app from having access to location AND network data. You don't want your offline software failing for lack of phoning home.

An argument could be made that Jane and Bob could well pirate it too but friction matters. Lots of folks can figure out how to pirate but fewer of them will actually do it if they have to visit the skeevier corners of the net, risk malware, and feel like a criminal instead of clicking on a different locale on your website and feel like they are cleverly getting a good deal. One weird trick to make a substantial portion of your revenue go away.

I would say that compared to software like Adobe that costs $600 a year or $3000 over a 5 year horizon it's already very inclusive.