Odd, it seems like you're describing the world today, as opposed to the world 10 years from now.

We went with MAudio Delta 1010 cards for recording with Ardour and associated tools. It started out on a system with a Sempron processor and 512MB RAM; songs averaged 25 tracks, and drums were recorded live on 6 separate tracks. There were no performance issues.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1275379&cid=28397147&art_pos=25

I won't argue the fact that ProTools is industry standard :)

This may have some relevance to the above comment.

Facebook did turn a profit last year, earlier than predicted:

http://www.marketingvox.com/facebook-sees-profit-on-target-for-500m-year-045281/

I know I'm probably a minority in this, but my gaming rigs (one for me, other for the Mrs.) cost around $450. ~100$ per year maintenance.. and I never spend more than $100 on a vid card. 9600GTs were $80 last time I needed to drop cash on them. Now, I'm a family man, and I love my games and pay for them, but you guys think you can keep us going on just multi-million dollar product ventures that cost us $50-60 a pop? I guess I'm probably not your target audience at all, and not of any concern, since I have to wait until the games are a more affordable $20 or so. I'm a patient man.. Bought Bioshock when it hit $20, UT3 as well, just bought Mass Effect for $10 (I can wait a year for part 2..). Valve gave me 6 games in the Orange Box, and I'm just finishing Half Life 2, Ep 2. Man was that great.. costs like $18. Great game. Speaking humbly and of my own opinion, I think you guys are just too big for yourselves. Hell, what am I saying, I"m not sure I've really played a game from Ubisoft (or have I?)

Just want to close buy saying, look at how great Braid was (in my opinion). Sure didn't take millions of dollars and DRM to make that (afaik).

Don't forget about the 'Ubuntu Software Center' for non-techie users. Its simplified interface is a good alternative to Synaptic for quick search/install/remove.

I have some pretty good success stories regarding people that are ultra-non-tech using Ubuntu. A friend of mine had a system I helped him with, he uses it for all his music creation/production/promoting work. He moved out to New York, a few thousand miles from me, and about a year later his HD died. I had him order a new drive off newegg, download Ubuntu 9.10 on his wife's PC, and do the install himself. He was up and running with a fresh Ubuntu and installed all his software (VLC, Ardour, Hydrogen, QJackCtl, LADSPA plugins, etc) in under an hour. He wouldn't know how to use a command line if he tried :) Again, I think this is a good success story!

Here's a previous post from me regarding software/hardware he uses and resulting artworks if anyone's further interested.

But it might in the end have something to do with how impressive the technology is. If the technology is desirable enough, then I'd like to be able to use it on my PC, TV (I'm thinking of something like a Sharp Aquos in this instance of 'TV'), iPhone, Droid, iPad, $100 netbook, toaster, etc. Problem is, I can't guarantee Silverlight runs reliably on any of those devices.