OSNews: Following the Consumer Software’s Market Status

“Computer users around the world while might be using different
applications to do their paying job (e.g. a proprietary chemistry
or biology app, or a high-end astronomy app etc) they all use the
same ‘basic’ applications in their daily lives: email clients, web
browsers, IM, calculators, media players, image viewers, system
utilities etc. Now these applications come for free with the
operating system and there are plenty of completely free
alternatives on the web too. But (especially younger) consumers
should realize that once upon a time these ‘basic’ free apps were
costing real money. So, what happen to this software market of
(basic today) applications?

“This market is pretty much dead. While there are a few
shareware around that make a ‘better media player’ or a ‘better
email client’, the reality is that no one expects to make money out
of such apps anymore. So, what happened? What made this huge
software market (10-15 years ago) to fail…?”

Complete
Story