This is not about 'software developers' it's about industry at large paying subscriptions for a variety of services.

The vast majority of users of SaaS are not software developers.

The parent of the parent comment clearly referenced engineering with his “If you’re already spending >$200k/year per employee then a productivity increase of 10%...”

> And the productivity increase using certain SaaS tools is not 10%, it can be an order of magnitude in certain instances

well... my productivity isn't always increased, regardless of what tools someone wants to buy. and... sometimes it's a drain on my productivity, but using tool ABC increases someone else's productivity (at the expense of mine). How do you account for the productivity increase of -5% for 30% of your employees, but 20% for the other 70%?