The Widget Economy Discussion
patio11: You seem to be very interested in grouping software by distinctions which do not matter to your users.  I would suggest not grouping software by distinctions which do not matter for your users.Your users do not have a point at which their demand for software is saturated, any more than they have a point at which their demand for products is saturated.  Your software solves a need or a want for them.  Needs or wants are essentially infinite.  (We live lives of ridiculous abundance compared to 99.999% of all humans who ever lived, and yet we still don't have enough.  Whether that is just a statement of fact or indictment of consumerist society is up to you.)Nobody looking for bingo cards for mom's birthday party says "Hold on, wait a minute -- do I need a widget for this, or a suite?"  Nor does playing the software taxonomy game help me sell a single copy to any customer anywhere.As to the question of how many paying customers you need to make a go of things, that question actually matters, but forget about the impact of widgets.  I'm going full time with about 1,000 sales a year, which puts me more than ramen profitable at my price point ($30) and cost structure.  That is not a one-size-fits-all answer: if you have multiple founders to support, have a wife and kids in San Fransisco, etc, you might need more.  If on the other hand, you're billing customers $20 a month, you need rather less.