No. IT salaries can be high, as overall company cost of ownership is minimal. You can just put these 5 guys in a single office room and give them laptops, or contract them remotely. You don't need to set up a large manufacturing site somewhere in the woods, together with logistics, distribution and of course material cost itself. And dozens of staff to operate it all."expert" you forgot that IT costs are high and you also have to maintain software with updates for upcoming years.
No, you don't . Many companies just show middle finger to customers, and after few years developers are gone. Don't you see any complains about unsupported products here on KVR?..you also have to maintain software with updates for upcoming years.
Yes, if you are going to do it properly and permanently, then it's gonna be expensive. That's why most of companies do not, they exist for a few years and they vanish, as developers move to more attractive offers.
These estimations are pulled out of thin air. Many plugin "companies" are in fact one-man business, that's because it's just not a profitable market.Just alone having like 5 good skilled coders can cost you 40 000 per month without taxes. If your research and development takes 1-4 years, run the calculations how much for the company that would cost.
Also it's not like anybody is setting a startup today, hires 5 devs instantly to develop "state-of-art synth" out of nothing and just waits for profit.