If you made $500,000 with the video editing suite in those 10 years, it was probably worth it.

500,000 - 100,000 / 10 = 40,000

But that doesn’t include salaries for professionals like editors or paintbox artists. A lot of video companies in central Ohio could not cope and went out of business at least temporarily. Mills James made it because they were poised for maximum profitability instead of just economy.

Now if you just mean 500k profits well then it very well may be worth it :D

From wikipedia: Vegas Pro 1.0: July 23, 1999, Adobe Premiere (became Adobe Premiere Pro): 1995, Final Cut Pro introduced at NAB 1999. I get your point but video editing software doesnt seem to be the best example. Social networks on the other hand...

Certainly software makers and all equipment makers had something to go on but assets value just disolved too fast for some to cope. An early version of vegas may have cost about 400 new but would not be worth much today. I recently got the humble bundle deal for 50 dollars.

Does this suggest that leasing software or SaaS is the way to go?

back in the 90s some costs could not be made cheaper without advancing technology in computers and at the time it happened slow enough for people to not realize what the end outcome would be and fast enough to be ruinous for people that didn’t rent their gear. I think that in the video business it is best to rent if you work with high end production. And it is better to be more like a general contractor than a manager who hires contract laborers instead of trying to run a payroll.