Sorry for the Joel-spam. Another interesting quote:

Ask Joel - Pricing Products:

$29 on a consumer product is a money-losing proposition. The cost to acquire a software consumer is around $100. And consumers are only willing to pay around $30-$40 for software.
...
The most successful company at the $30-$40 price point is Intuit with Quicken and TurboTax. When Intuit sells you a copy of Quicken, they're going to make you register (perhaps using a rebate offer). Then they're going to try to sell you Turbo Tax every year. Then they're going to sell you preprinted checks for your inkjet printer. Then they're going to charge you $10 for state tax returns. Over the lifetime of a customer they'll make a couple of hundred dollars, so acquiring a customer for $100 is worth it. That's why Intuit can do consumer and you can't: they're really a stationary company!

That's an interesting take. Obviously not true (Ultra-Edit seems to do okay), but interesting.