Hardware. It's like the Apple model (before they got into services). They sell a full suite of hardware that works great with their software, and they see the software as a way to keep good will, and also showcase their tech well.

They also sell a paid version, if you want a few extra features.

Their hardware is deeply reliable, affordable, and you can see that they have super solid software chops.

I made the unconventional choice of using a Blackmagic Micro Studio 4K camera for a robotic application and it turned out to be a not crazy choice - we get our choice of lenses and they have controllable focus and zoom, there's a REST API for the camera (which can connect to Ethernet), etc. To speak nothing of the crisp image. And that I can pick one up in 30 minutes at B&H (in NYC).

Industrial vision cameras can cost ~the same but you'll want to rip your hair out before you get to grab an image (or change the focus - sorry, that's mostly never possible).

Huge, huge fan of Blackmagic. The rock-solid free editing software is just cherry on top.

Yep, I was at a broadcaster when we bought a whole pack of their SDI capture cards... the only ones on the market really (everyone else wanted to sell you massively expensive enterprise "appliances") for a very affordable price (I believe they were like 500$ a piece for 4 SDI inputs?).

Also they were first to sell us USB3 based HDMI capture devices that we could take around and do live capture from cameras at full HD for also a pretty affordable price (around 1000$?).

Whenever we needed affordable (semi) professional gear, they were consistently the ones to look at.

> They also sell a paid version, if you want a few extra features.

And the great thing about the paid version is that updates are (so far) free with no subscription bs.

I paid for it once like 10 years ago and still get every new version for free.