This logic has always bothered me a little and I’ve never understood why, until recently.

The fact of marginal cost results in a lot of software being written that otherwise never would have been. After all, the difficulty of solving a problem for myself often doesn’t offset the trouble of making a reusable solution. It’s only through having other people use it or pay for it that it becomes worthwhile.

Randall Munroe’s chart is incomplete because it thinks too locally.