LispWorks exists since 1987. Originally developed by Harlequin, a software tools and software applications (Postscript, Lisp, ML, Dylan, ...) company. After Harlequin closed its doors, Globalgraphics bought the remaining assets and employed some staff. They spawned a company. This spawned the current LispWorks company which is a relatively small company dedicated to only the Lisp product.
Initially LispWorks *only* addressed the professional and academic market (for UNIX systems) with the professional edition, enterprise edition, site licenses and special implementations (like the one on NASA's Deep Space One). Over time it got ported to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS.
A bunch of years ago they have introduced two versions of 'Hobbyist' editions: with delivery and without. This is still expensive, but in reach for dedicated hobbyists (my hobby camera costs like five times of a Hobbyist license).
Meanwhile, mostly only LispWorks and Franz Inc survived in the commercial market for Common Lisp, while all cheaper Lisp offerings (from companies like Expertelligence, Procycon, Corman, Gold Hill, Apple, ... etc.) haven't survived as a commercial and maintained product.
Competitors in similar or more expensive price ranges also went away (Lucid, Symbolics, TI, Xerox, LMI, Ibuki, ...).
Franz and LispWorks must have done something right -> they are still there and publish new releases, while all the other companies (in various price ranges and various target markets) had to give up.
Not sure I noticed the new hobbyist editions, had stopped looking many years ago. The inital professional version was in the same price range though. As you say, they are "in reach" for a dedicated hobbyist and indeed, my camera has cost more. However, I wonder, how many "dedicated hobbyists" are around who want to spend so much money on software. After all, it still is very expensive. 600€ to use it at all, 1200€ to compile a program, more, if you use more than one OS. I even might be willing to spend so much money, if I was really convinced that this is the product I want to use. But then, I won't be convinced until I had the chance to use the product in the first place. That is the vicious circle I see and this is the point I am arguing from: to break this circle.
To attract new users, you first have to show them, that you have a great product, then you can charge them. I am very happy that LispWorks is still a product and wish them all the best. If their strategy works well for them, great! I can only tell the story why I haven't gotten LispWorks, despite having a good impression of the system in the minimal trial I was able to run. But I couldn't try it to the point where I would have been willing to spend that much money on this. I am a Lisp programmer for over 20 years now, 15 of those as a professional developer. I ended up with the stack consisting of SBCL+Slime+LTk. Also quit nice :). At work, our team uses mostly SBCL and Allegro. None of us has used LispWorks, all for similar reasons. And that is, why no one pushed for LispWorks, when purchase decisions were discussed.
Right, paying upwards $1000 for a hobby development tool is not common, even though there are more expensive hobbys.
LispWorks has the no-cost Personal Edition to get an impression and one can get trial licenses of the whole product.
Generally I fear that there is very little money to be made from a low-price (say: $100 - $300) Lisp implementation (the market is still small) and that few people will upgrade to a more expensive version of it (what would be the reason to do so?).
The question is, how many hobbyist licenses get sold at the current price? If that number is rather large - great good for them. If it is only a couple of licenses, then they might consider options which open up the environment to a larger audience. Like people completely new to Lisp. Which later might turn it towards commercial applications.
I tried the no-cost edition, but as it couldn't run my pet project I was working on back then (memory limit), that trial lasted a few minutes and I continued to use SBCL.
Initially LispWorks *only* addressed the professional and academic market (for UNIX systems) with the professional edition, enterprise edition, site licenses and special implementations (like the one on NASA's Deep Space One). Over time it got ported to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS.
A bunch of years ago they have introduced two versions of 'Hobbyist' editions: with delivery and without. This is still expensive, but in reach for dedicated hobbyists (my hobby camera costs like five times of a Hobbyist license).
Meanwhile, mostly only LispWorks and Franz Inc survived in the commercial market for Common Lisp, while all cheaper Lisp offerings (from companies like Expertelligence, Procycon, Corman, Gold Hill, Apple, ... etc.) haven't survived as a commercial and maintained product.
Competitors in similar or more expensive price ranges also went away (Lucid, Symbolics, TI, Xerox, LMI, Ibuki, ...).
Franz and LispWorks must have done something right -> they are still there and publish new releases, while all the other companies (in various price ranges and various target markets) had to give up.