[jacques_chester]

The key is that software development is an unavoidable sunk cost. Once it has been paid, it can be ignored in terms of considering per-unit pricing.

The actual marginal cost of each unit of software sold is pretty close to zero. This is what makes it so fantastically profitable compared to almost anything else.

[josephlord]

The same is true of most drugs. Marginal cost is near zero compared to development cost.

In neither case do you necessarily have fantastic profits although if you can sell at scale at a good price it becomes very likely but if you have a drug for a niche market or software in a crowded market it is quite possible to make a loss.

This is neither an argument for or against the patent abolition proposition which I am torn on. I can definitely imagine with alternative arrangements for Pharma we could be better off than currently but I believe that there must be something possible that is better than both what we have now and better than nothing.

[zanny]

I think in half a century we won't have the backwards investment funding model in industries where units are extremely cheap but R&D id expensive. Instead you would have something akin to crowdfunding with guarantees and insurance against failed investments by those that want the end product, so the motive is not profit, but end product. That people who want a thing fund the creation of the thing, instead of people who want money funding an expensive up front thing that is then unnaturally restricted with patents and copyright to try to profit off the unit sales, when in many cases (pharma) they are near free, or in the case of software (past the first copy being distributed) are absolutely free (if those that have the software willingly share it).