This comment is misleading and misses the point.
When you buy an office chair you capitalize the asset on your books.
The chair manufacturer in turn pays wages to a person to construct the chair. Those wages are not capitalized, the manufacturer deducts them fully when they are incurred.
The main issue is that “software manufacturers” must now depreciate those same wages over 5 years. Which is unique and does not pass a basic common sense sniff test.
That is not correct.
The chair manufacturer capitalizes the costs of factory wages into inventory.
They are expenses as cost of goods sold when the inventory is sold.
Which makes sense because they have realized 100% of the value of those expenses when it is sold.