As someone who works in the software industry I can tell you it‘s not that simple. Providers do want to maximize revenue, but consumers likewise want to optimize the value they receive. I paid around 80$ per month for the adobe suite, which is ridiculous for my use case. So I switched to affinity (40$ per major version). They are not as good, but good enough for what I need. Another example is figma and sketch. I used to pay for sketch, but figma offered their software for free, so I seitched over. Figma was so good, I actually WANTED to pay them, because it makes my professional life so much easier. They pump out useful features like crazy. The only reason I don‘t want to give them any money now is their virtue signalling for blm and lgbtqm+ stuff. We personally develop freemium software, and let me tell you: it‘s quite hard to make it profitable. You constantly have to talk to users - what are their pain points? How can you solve them better? How can you improve the product? Why are users leaving or not buying? And if one of your competitors makes a better product for a better price it gets really tough. You always have to improve or people will leave for something better. The flipside is: people are actually willing to pay for a good product. And as much as I hate apples virtue signalling and politics, they just make very good products for the average computer user. They invest in usability a lot. I would switch in a heartbeat if there was a company that offered the same quality without the politics, even at a slightly higher price point. But then you get into the issue of the big 5 personality traits. Highly creative people tend to be sjws because they are predisposed to it. Startups and software evolve through creative people, hence the politics.