| I would split hobbyists and students. Students become professionals and DO make choices. I've seen more than one CAD company succeed primarily by courting universities. Indeed, Apple for a long time dominated graphic design mostly due to its education programs. Within hobbyists / nerds, there are also two general categories: - Ones who do this on the side - Ones who do this as part of a job, but in a different industry For example, a biologist might tinker in writing medical software or designing some kind of lab instrumentation. Those often do turn into commercial products. The PCB is often almost incidental, but if it's in a particular tool, it's very unlikely to ever be ported out. Of course, that leads to O(1) license, whereas an EE shop will have O(n) licenses with the number of people they employ. But it does lead to sales. Joel had a nice article on pricing: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-... The basic upside is giving your stuff away to students and hobbyists costs O(nothing), if you can differentiate in a way which doesn't let paid users not pay. |
Counterexample: me. :-)
As a student, I had access to some specialized mathematical software. I would like to use them at work, but I now work in a very different industry.