&gt;&gt; taxi drivers invest more money than software developers<p>&gt; Citation needed.<p>Pretty sure that for the price of a car, including maintenance, you could pay for a nice workstation and multiple monitors with lots of &quot;expensive&quot; software on a subscription model.<p>&gt; You are assuming that everyone who develops software is employed as a software developer. There is fine work done by hobbyists and independents.<p>If you&#x27;re developing open-source software, you can probably get a free license for many IDEs. If you&#x27;re both a hobbyist, don&#x27;t want to release your software as open-source, and expect to be given top-rate tools for a cheap price...