Does software make a profit?

In one of the recent articles on Habré there was a phrase, having read that, I pooper the text for an article that I had long nursed.
“IT exists thanks to the urgent needs of society to collect, systematize and process information. And it’s not at all necessary to sell air. ”

The last few years of my life I have been analytics. Working with databases, creating programs for analysis, and working with its results. IT takes most of my life, so I rotate in several kitchens at once, so I share food for the brain.


Every day a lot of freshly compiled programs are seen. Constantly there is something new - new products, new versions, updates, etc.
Advertising software, no worse than advertising soda pressure on people. From here came the bluff in the form of software. “Are you still sitting on the pig? We are all on the top seven! ”Many people working at the computer have a blind faith that the new version of the program is a gift from God, and you need to fuck it immediately. From here a lot of people wanting to push him.
The situation of life with the replacement of actors: it came to the representative of Oracle, Microsoft and Sun (it happens before it is purchased by Oracle), and each vie begins to talk about the need for our SQL server, spinning on PostgreSQL to transfer to the new platform, which will provide the most efficient work, fast processing of requests, unless a naked woman does not provide - the result will be an increase in the quality (?) of products and profits (?).
Of course, such giants could come to us only in dreams, in fact, it was about a shell for working with databases, and the firms were not less unknown, so I found this replacement a good one.
Why is the paragraph above, in the end I put the question marks?
Wrong opinion that software is automatic money making.
Immediately I’ll repeat that I’m a keen IT professional, so don’t think that I want to hurt someone - everything is my observations that I don’t impose.
After another such visit, I wondered how they wanted me to improve product quality and how could their server bring me profit?
It is clear - it is better to keep electronic accounting, rather than paper - the speed of work is increased - the risks are reduced. Typing is naturally better in the office, rather than writing by hand or typed - also increases the speed. Even open source software helps save money on purchasing proprietary software. And the database is also better to keep on the server, from where the result of the query can be expected immediately.
I hope you appreciate the idicomism of the situation with databases, and you already understand what I’m getting at, but I’ll cover the subject even more fully.
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But does the software bring profit in its pure form? This process automation is undoubted, but it would seem where does the money come from? Absolutely everyone understands that money makes product manufacturers - engineers, programmers, builders. All those who produce a product or service. If you live in Russia, you probably came across the production of tools that were made during the reign of the peas, but they still work on them. Why work, why not buy a new, more functional and modern equipment? The price issue is omitted. These tools produce goods. New features that have emerged over the past, say, the next 50 years, are often simply not needed. Do not rush to extremes, do not compare the needle with a sewing machine. I'm talking about the tools of one stage of development, which have changed only the interface, and part of the functionality. For example, a jigsaw with a wooden and jigsaw with a rubberized handle. Let's project for example on MS Office. 2003 and 2007 - everyone saw their fundamental difference in the interface. Many even know the price of the 2007 office suite. Everyone knows about the new office (they even tell me that 2010 has already appeared - I am behind the times, but we continue about 2007). And half the world goes and buys a new office. The question why it is difficult enough to answer. Yes - there are differences. Yes - something is better.
“It’s not at all necessary to sell air.”
Can it still be 2007 air? Few people use any new features, I don’t even know what new features are in it, and many people don’t know either. But it works. Bought, and someone earned. So you can say about almost any software.

When the company was deciding which DBMS to put on the server, I beat my head against the wall in order to understand what we were saying to say that we were competing with our “vaasche Orakl worth it” - stupid. That our server works for us - and it’s great. What is the KEY MOMENT in our database in the sense of filling is creating complete chaos. Work was with the official base of addresses in Moscow. Several hundred streets from the base were simply absent in the city, there were no sets of streets, although they exist, numbers, letters and corps of houses were broken, like an eaten cucumber in the stomach of an alcoholic, whoever. From here, more than half of the addresses could not be actual displayed without manual processing. In some ways, it was the fault of the constantly changing software for working with it that was badly sharpened, in some ways it was the fault of those who filled this database with data, it was the fault of those who provided the data. But software itself was not to blame. There was nothing to do with the SQL server, and the new one would not correct existing errors. The data was still and remain crappy. However, software is seen by many at 42 light at the end of the tunnel, and in fact it is a wrinkle on their nose.
This is a special case of human-program interaction.
It is difficult to underestimate him, the software makes life easier for us. But, unfortunately, they see something more in him than he himself is. I have written some wonderful programs, like any programmer I loved them as my children. And I scratched my fists on the question of the relevance and correctness of the data. But over time, an understanding of this process came to me that the products or services themselves were extremely non-demanding of software. By themselves there, and excellent. You can twist and twist them as you like. And the demand for software is in people. I do not know why this is happening, but I observed just such pictures in my life.

A bit provocative, but I hope you have read, and found yourself food for the brain in mind of several new thoughts. This is the purpose of this article - to talk about what little is said, but what lies under your nose. Maybe just me. Perhaps someone will see himself.
I would be interested to read your feedback - I shared my observations, maybe you will enrich me with your thoughts too.

Thank you all, I finished.