Eh, if IP wasn't a thing we could still make money in almost the exact same way via contract law.

Sure, but the value of the contract would be greatly reduced if no one could claim exclusivity over the output.

You could though, as long as you're careful with contracts. With backend software that just means a contract that you're not going to give a copy to anyone else. With frontend software that means making people sign contracts that they aren't going to further distribute it, before you distribute it to them.

All copyright really does is make these contracts "automatic". I guess that's important for things like web ui's, but it doesn't really matter for anything with an EULA, e.g. appstores like steam could work exactly the same as they do today.

> With backend software that just means a contract that you're not going to give a copy to anyone else. With frontend software that means making people sign contracts that they aren't going to further distribute it

You are basically describing intellectual property

Well yes, that's my point, you can recreate the parts of copyright that matter with contract law... so wanting to get rid of copyright isn't really a contradiction to our profession.