[conartist6]

You're talking about a world in which costs are centralized. A central entity handles all R&D costs and all customer support costs for one product.

If you split the support costs between many members of a community though, you don't need to fear customization. Then, ideally, the users who are most alike will support each other, the same way you can get a degree of support for some particular flavor of Linux by seeking out other people who use that flavor (or another one that's enough like it)

Backlash will be in the form of working, competing software maintained by communities, precisely because this is the only form of backlash that might cause companies not to renew their licenses.