I can definitely understand the marketing/psychology appeal of it.. but it also feels like a bit of a rip that I either end up with a) a less good product, or b) paid more for the same thing. That is.. until we figure out the ways to DIY upgrade them ;)
I find it interesting that, here of all places, people consider two different software applications to be "the same thing" just because they run on the same hardware.
I dare say a significant percentage of the development budget for any smart piece of equipment these days goes into the software, not the hardware.
Putting "#ifdef PROSUMER" or something to this effect into the source code shouldn't be too costly. Disabling existing functionality is easy and it feels like cheating even if it's called "market segmentation".
This is what developers like us tend to think. But consider this: the development cost of the sodtware does not change much in order to create feature reduced versions of most products. But if you are in a small market where the volume of expected sales for the full version of the product can barely lead to proftability, creating a cheaper version for a higher volume market is a sound business strategy. This would not work with a single undifferentiated product.
I'm not saying that it is not a viable strategy. But it needs to be taken into account that tech-savvy users will not see it as a fair play, and probably will not think twice before making the most of a cheaper version.
I'd be really leery about reflashing a $X,000 scope. The NRE on those are huge so just because it's the same hw doesn't mean you aren't still paying for something when you buy the more expensive version.
