>> The rotten tomatoes of open source is the sharevalue of the company providing a paid alternative.
I love this statement. It feels like it should be right, and st first glance it makes sense.
The problem I guess is that things aren't boxed so neatly. Most public companies have multiple products.
So, for example Microsoft share price doesn't reflect Linux quality because MS share price covers not just Windows but Azure et al. One can compare market share for desktop users (ie comparing windows to Linux desktop) but that's a very narrow focus that doesn't even extend to Windows Server vs Linux.
And it's not like googles share price is a reflection on Firefox, or Oracles is a reflection on PostgreSQL.
I love the line, it's well written, but alas it's likely not really true (most of the time.)
Audodesk also has CAD software, Blender is certainly not an alternative to Fusion. It is hard to see in the share value which one is related to 3DS compared to other Autodesk products. In the same way that the share value of Microsoft is certainly not an indicator for the success of Linux. Linux certainly caused some traditional UNIX companies to go down, but it is more likely due to the raise of the cheaper PC architecture in the server space. Also, Oracle did fine despite Postgres, they even ended up buying MySql. Apple with its proprietary OS did extremely well against open source Linux and Android.
It may be a good indication for smaller companies reliant on a single product, but these may not be publicly traded. Big companies usually don't rely on a single product, and have ways around open source competition. They can diversify, buy their competition, sue them, for example using patents, use tactics like "embrace-extend-exctinguish", have good marketing targeted at big customers, or simply invest a lot into making their paid product the best.
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/adsk
Here is the usability rating of blender visualized as history.