The minute you admit you are in Iran, American companies aren't supposed to sell to you, generally speaking. So, yeah, that seems like a weird comment.
I used to speak regularly with an Iranian who was, among other things, a software developer. My general impression is that money was not nearly as big a problem as other things, thanks to the embargo.
Your comments don't quite fit with my understanding of things, which could be just my lack of knowledge about a lot of things. If you are Iranian and, thus, your primary language is Farsi, perhaps it's due to a language barrier.
I'm trying to bow out of this discussion and already deleted one of my comments. It seems like a rather lot of negativity over a minor observation on my part. So it doesn't seem like a good place to try to start a meaty discussion of open source in Iran, or I think that would be interesting to me personally, in spite of my limited knowledge of code and so forth.
Iran's economy has changed significantly in the past few years. University professors that used to make around ~60K USD a year just a decade ago are now making 8-12K USD a year today.
Money is definitely a problem, and even if you have the money dealing with American companies completely closing off everything is a pain.
Thankfully Android, being a little bit more open than Apple has allowed a ton of small software startups to become successful in Iran, while Apple has stifled them and has actively removed Iranian apps from the AppStore.
This brings back me to my original point that if we keep wanting Apple to keep control of what can be published and used on the iPhone then what happens when a questionable US government decides to start banning apps that help people organize? Or apps that help people combat and fight injustices?
Apple, keeping the strict control they have on the iPhone, is making the future of computing under a questionable state a dangerous thing.
It's been a few years since I've had any contacts in Iran. I wasn't aware the economy had gotten so much worse, so my apologies. My information is out of date, apparently.
I did look up some things about the embargo and open source platforms at one time. My knowledge of programming is limited. I know a little CSS and HTML and I run some websites, but I don't really think of myself as a "programmer." So I probably can't meaningfully add anything here.
I'm generally on your side. Thank you for the interesting comment.
If that's the point you want to make, there are much better ways to make it.
I don't think there's anything wrong -- or snarky -- with pointing out that there are whole countries out there where each and every developer would have as much trouble coughing up the necessary $100 as you would have had during your years of homelessness.