From a purely economic perspective its all the same whether you are paying for products or paying for people and whether your revenue comes for media or sales. Those cost/profit first concerns are entirely the wrong questions to ask though, because they limit available routes of revenue generation.
The only purpose of software is automation. All cost factors should derive from that one source of truth. As a result the only valid concerns should be:
* Lowering liabilities
* Increasing capabilities
From a business perspective that means not paying money for unintended harms, and simultaneously either taking market share from the competition or inventing new markets. If your people aren't capable of writing software or your only options are free choices provided to you then you are the mercy of catastrophic opportunity costs that even the smallest players can sprint past.
The only purpose of software is automation. All cost factors should derive from that one source of truth. As a result the only valid concerns should be:
* Lowering liabilities
* Increasing capabilities
From a business perspective that means not paying money for unintended harms, and simultaneously either taking market share from the competition or inventing new markets. If your people aren't capable of writing software or your only options are free choices provided to you then you are the mercy of catastrophic opportunity costs that even the smallest players can sprint past.