🤔 good question. Free version is so powerful, the studio version is for the blockbuster hollywood productions that need to be able to have artists collaborate on projects: editors, visual FX, sound, color. And for anyone who needs more visual FX tools. But even then, it's a one-time price last I checked, so I'd call it a fair deal. It's about the same price as Final Cut Pro, which doesn't have a free version and can only be used on Apple's devices. DaVinci Resovle now supports the ipad, but they are even on Linux.

Blackmagic D. makes money from their hardware products, editing keyboards and cameras and live streaming software and hardware interfaces.