Continuing his light-hearted and insightful series of essays, Joel reveals the deep dark secrets of software pricing, and why none of them work. Halfway through the essay: “That was the easy part. The hard part is that everything I just told you is sort of wrong.” Three-quarters of the way: “There’s no software priced between $1000 and $75,000. I’ll tell you why.” He does warn you, along the way, that you will end up learning nothing, but I think he undersells himself. Pricing is a fine art of balancing contradictory and opposing motivations, with insufficient information, and never knowing if you guessed right. Good reading!