Copying my comment from another thread on the topic
Probably because the software team is under a different cost center than the hardware/camera team, and they weren’t generating revenue. So the idiot assholes at the top of the SW side said “we can monetize our webcam software” and a bunch of people agreed so they could look relevant and keep their jobs. Capitalism!
But that’s not the point. Of course it costs money, but they’re not content providing it for free. A lot of hardware companies provide additional apps and functionality for free to enhance the hardware and make it better, but Canon chose to monetize it
Copying my comment from another thread on the topic
Probably because the software team is under a different cost center than the hardware/camera team, and they weren’t generating revenue. So the idiot assholes at the top of the SW side said “we can monetize our webcam software” and a bunch of people agreed so they could look relevant and keep their jobs. Capitalism!
This could be shortened to “Because it costs money to develop the software”
But that’s not the point. Of course it costs money, but they’re not content providing it for free. A lot of hardware companies provide additional apps and functionality for free to enhance the hardware and make it better, but Canon chose to monetize it