And why would that be?

Not everyone is wired the same way, and some of the greatest contributors to science did it out of curiosity rather than goodwill.

Personally, I think the H.L. Mencken quote sums it all up rather well.

You really gotta walk back that excessive, exuberant, irrational optimism, Sparky.

Well, there are incubators that support some shiny new thing, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram but they tend to Do One Little Thing Well, a la Unix, and then sell their soul for rock-n-roll.
But we think about IT here. There are also business in the Real World http://www.groundedcoffeeshop.com/ but both of these examples underscore your broader point, if I may radically restate it: economic activity of consequence is a top-down, not a bottom-up affair these days.

I'm willing to commit to a definite maybe.
BHO owns a substantial chunk of his woes, but it's not an open-and-shut case that we'd've gotten into reform mode in the counterfactual case of a GOP administration.

Unlikely to be an equal revenue stream.

The cost would seem proportional to the users.
As far as running the business, just let me sharpen my AWS knives a little more. . .
Of course, in our post-capitalistic era, just having a good business plan is necessary but insufficient to protect you from Big Oligarchy and Big Government, assuming you could pry them apart with a crowbar. If you offer a viable alternative, look for "something really, really unfortunate" to arrive with an innocuous name like "Net Neutrality", or something.

I wish I could mod this comment up. There is nothing more joyful than giving your children the opportunities that you never had, and helping them accomplish their own success.

So, how much are we willing to pay as a subscription to make up the lost revenue?
Or do we just expect the vendor to eat the opportunity cost?

You can get a buff body with a reasonable workout regimen in less than a year, and many elements of your "looks" can easily be fixed (better hair, wearing contacts, getting teeth fixed, dressing more stylishly).

If you have game, then your dick size doesn't matter, because history is rife with examples of men with questionable looks and stunning women.

Ultimately, having good social skills is much more important than any of those things in getting laid.

Yeah, your sig is a hoot.

I know, right? You're the only authentic one here, and the rest of us wander in circles.

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2015/04/17/boing-boing-meets-the-mob/

I'm sure you understand much more, yet strike an ignorant pose. Tiresome.

Your nostalgic 1A notions are totally going to get you sent to Room 101, mister.

Oh, I'm not forcing anyone into a Windows environment. I strongly push them towards Linux and tell them it's the preferred environment at the lab, and all our infrastructure is Linux based. We just wanted to set up a data download station, and suggested Linux, but were told the external users aren't familar with Linux (I don't know how they run the experiment, where lots of it is based on Linux, but hey, not something I get to change), and will need Windows there.

We have plenty of Labview stuff which I'm told by staff must use Windows, as well as some Matlab stuff, even though I'm pretty sure quite a lot of it runs on Linux, I don't get to override them.

And then there are the Mac users who insisted on using onenote for logging on a separate Windows computer, when their experiment controls were all Linux and their laptops are Macs, but why not use a Windows only program for this note-taking? Because it's easier than a web based logging tool to copy pictures into. (This was 2008ish, carries forward to now, though there now is a Mac OneNote client, it's still not to my knowledge multi user or runable on Linux)...

Most of the insanity comes from people who *don't care* about the technical reality and substitute their own. And are apparently OK with a lot of cluged together solutions. At least I get a job out of it.