The metal economy is huge. Almost every product requires metal. But metallurgists don't take home a big fraction of it. What's special about the software economy is that people who write the software take home a large fraction of it. Maybe more than half, depending how you count. Which is unprecedented. It's not just because software can be zero marginal cost. Musicians don't take home half of music revenue. In most…
" people who write the software take home a large fraction of it. Maybe more than half, " Where do you get that figure? The vast majority of people writing software are not paid enough salary + benefits to come anywhere close to 50% of the revenue their work is responsible for earning.
It's a good point. It varies widely depending on the industry, but even in the software industry a good rule of thumb is that IT costs about 10% of revenue (some places are as high as 30%, some as low as 2%). But that includes all the management (not executive management) and support staff. The spend for sales and marketing is much higher than development (though sometimes most of that goes out of the company, paying for sales channels, etc).