Skypi, I can see where you're coming from and sympathize with your position, but there's one flaw in the Movie Channel analogy. It doesn't make any direct difference to the Movie Channel after you pony up your fee whether you're watching the channel or not. They use the same resources to broadcast to one user or one hundred million. On the Net, each connected user adds to the resource burden imposed by the content/service provider and increases the provider's costs of doing business.
Now the more users you have, the smaller the incremental added cost for each user (and user 102 costs less than user 101, who in turn costs less than user 100). However, there is still a cost to the vendor, however small, for each connected user. This makes it more difficult to achieve profitability with a flat rate model, absent another revenue stream (such as advertising).
Price does make the market, but I just don't know that a highly realistic (thus high-learning-curve) WWII flight sim can expect to achieve the critical mass needed to be consistently profitable with flat-rate pricing. Getting good at flying a WWII aircraft in RM is hard work, which will turn off a percentage of this instant-gratification culture in which we live. Then too, there is still (though fading) stigma associated with spending a lot of time playing computer games, which further suggests it'll be a long time (if ever) before ACM simming becomes as popular as golf or bowling.
However, what might be a possible ancillary revenue stream is for HTC to pursue commerce partnerships with hardware manufacturers (system and component vendors, especially the types like Crossline, Adamant, et al, DSL vendors, companies like Guillemot and Hoffman wanting to build relationships with an international customer base, the guy building really hot stuff in his garage who can put up his own Web site but might not be able to afford e-commerce entry costs or otherwise attract traffic, etc.). They could sell the stuff through a link or a commerce site, and receive a smallish fee for each referred sale (Amazon does this with e-business partners, including the local classical music station here in Cleveland).
If I were a system vendor, I know I wouldn't mind taking a flyer on a "cockpit-in-a-box" geared to the hardcore simmer who might want an afforable high-performance option that would free up the "full-featured" PC in the den for use by the family, thus promoting domestic tranquility.
I'm thinking high-end Celeron or midrange PIII coupled with 2 USB ports, maybe 2-3 PCI slots for non-Winmodem, video, sound, no removable media drive *at all*, 17" or 19" monitor and low-end speakers (even the less expensive stuff sounds pretty good these days). If you could hammer the price low enough while preserving a sustainable margin, and bndle it with a range of flight control options (simple stick through full HOTAS) they'd sell like hotcakes, at least within a limited market segment.
Flathat
