How can the average consumer tell if the plugin is actually worth the asking price?

[Numanoid]

Yep. 2/10 of top results are not audio related.

In a way that is interesting, the world is not so small after all.

[Zombie Queen]

Yep. 2/10 of top results are not audio related.

In a way that is interesting, the world is not so small after all.

The world is small. It's Goggle that's huge.

[masterhiggins]

Most devs with a bit of experience easily make more money than their dentists.

By making VST plugins?

That's clearly not what he said.

Actually its FabienTDR who completely missed what ZombieQueen said.

How do you figure? ZQ indicated that plugin devs should be supported so they are able to survive. Fabian suggested that coding in general was able to provide a decent wage. I think the only thing to scrutinize was the assumption that plugin coders were flexible enough to appropriate their skills elsewhere in the coding world, which isn't even that much of a leap.

[whyterabbyt]

How do you figure?

ZQ made a statement that a lot of plugin development is relatively poorly paid and FTDR responded that ZQ didnt know what he was talking about because plugin developers could make decent money doing other things.

But any supposed larger income they could make, anywhere else, is completely irrelevant to whether the amount of money they might make from plugin development is relatively low or not.

ZQ indicated that plugin devs should be supported so they are able to survive.

That's clearly not what he said.

[BertKoor]

Most devs with a bit of experience easily make more money than their dentists.

I think not. There was this worldwide survey on StackOverflow lately with some actual figures. In the US wages for developers are quite higher than in Europe, but dentists will top that without question.
https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2017
Interesting numbers....

[Numanoid]

My dentist is always perfectly tanned, like he is always just back from a Mediterranean cruise.

[FabienTDR]

Most devs with a bit of experience easily make more money than their dentists.

I think not. There was this worldwide survey on StackOverflow lately with some actual figures. In the US wages for developers are quite higher than in Europe, but dentists will top that without question.
https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2017
Interesting numbers....

Maybe ppl with important, well paid jobs aren't into public surveys?

I mentioned it in contrast to the ridiculous burger example. The dentist case was about experienced developers. If someone can work through the struggle of audio plugin dev being able to release and maintain stable products, he can easily rock the web, app or corporate world. All at least an order of magnitude less challenging intellectually. The demand is enormous for this specific type of problem solving devs, boredom being the main problem, not money.

Good developers in key positions are comparably well paid. Not as much as bankers, but well above the average. Many companies simply depend on them too much. The average salary for the 84,183 SAP employees is € k120 per year (most are devs). Average. Many dentists don't reach that, at least not in their first decade. It's not much different at Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and so on. You better don't try selling burgers with your coding skills, instead go out, move to where the demand is greatest.