Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future · chapter 5 · id zero-to-one-c5-07-software-enjoys-near-zero-marg

“Software enjoys near-zero marginal costs of production, creating natural economies of scale that physical products cannot match.”

needs contextconfidence: medium⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending

Receipts

Joel Spolsky -- Strategy Letter V (2004)FLAGGED: dead link (404)

Software has zero marginal cost for additional copies. The entire cost is in development; each additional user costs essentially nothing to serve.

Wall Street Journal -- GitHub Copilot Losing Money (2024)paywalled — manual check queued

GitHub Copilot lost an average of $20-80 per user per month in its first year, with some heavy users costing Microsoft $80/month against a $10/month subscription. AI-powered software has significant marginal costs.

This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us — corrections are loud here.