Don't Be a Free User (2011)
blog.pinboard.in
blog.pinboard.in
With software as an application, there was still the possibility to continue using software for years when a company shut down. Windows has terrific backwards compatibility and on UNIX you get far by keeping around old shared libraries and giving a hint to the dynamic loader.
With services, you are lucky to get a one-year heads up. Sometimes the service disappears in mere months. For this reason, I only give my money to services that are too big to fail (e.g. Dropbox & Office 365) or have an easy migration path (Fastmail). Other than that I refuse to buy anything but software where I actually own a copy.
Windows is most backward compatible software in existence.
You were downvoted for saying this, but anybody who has read the Old New Thing blog (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/) or Raymond Chen's chapter on Windows backwards compatibility (http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780321440303/samplech..., PDF) will be both impressed and horrified at the lengths the Windows team went to in order to avoid breaking programs.
https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windowsnt/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Microsoft_Window...
Windows backwards compatibility took a dramatic turn for the worse with Windows 7 when they decided to run old software in a VM instead of keeping compatibility. People had to turn to DOSBox instead, which perhaps ironically was originally made for things like Linux to run DOS software.
- The geeks with the know-how to run a Web server benefit from your product for free, but in exchange you get bug reports, patches, etc.
- Everyone else pays, because you also offer a paid hosting option.
But because the product is fundamentally open source and federated, it can and hopefully will outlive its original developer.
1) Not the geeks, but the big multinational companies with disposable developer time end up using your open-source solution. Exactly the types of users I don't feel sorry for and would rather extract money from.
2) The "payback" in the form of bug reports and patches is negligible, because nobody likes to do work if they're not being compensated (either through money, or, more commonly in the open-source world, fame)
3) The users of the hosted version don't want to pay anything because "it's open-source, after all".
4) People that do not have the necessary technical capabilities to host your software, but also don't like to pay, harass you on GitHub and other support channels because "your software doesn't work", and it "throws error messages".
The key advantage is that some people (journalists, bloggers) tend to present you in a more positive light if you describe yourself as an "open-source solution" rather than yet another commercial app.
You want to use the base functionalities? Be my guest.
You want Single Sign On through LDAP, AD, etc.? Commercial edition.
You want advanced user management and permissions, etc.? Commercial edition.
You want the product to work behind a NTLM proxy? Commercial edition.
You want to use your own domain name (if hosted)? Commercial edition.
There's a handful of requests that are sure-sign markers that someone is using the product in a corporate environment.
Of course, if the people asking for those features also provide a pull request that complies with the project's pull request guidelines, then in that case, things might change. Though it's quite rare that such a huge feature as AD integration is actually provided by a project outsider (especially one that also comes with good code coverage, respects project coding conventions, etc.).
- People who only need basic functionalities don't bring any money
- People who need paid functionalities don't get to try them in the free version
So as much I as like free tiers as a user, for a business I think "free trial" is the way to go.
Everything is paid.
Except there is a free edition for up to N users, or non-production use.
This lets people try the product, demo and experiment.
There are consumer orientated services like Newsblur (http://newsblur.com) that do this. There are business orientated services such as SugarCRM (https://www.sugarcrm.com/) that do this.
SaaS is the likely saviour of "commercial" open source.
That said - yes users are unreasonable! All users, all the time. Whether it's open source or otherwise. Unfortunately, lots of open source users think the giving up of their time to report a problem means it should be solved, and they can't do it. The only thing I can offer is that it tells you how important what you created has become to them - think of it as a reverse compliment!
http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2016/08/applying-business-sou...
Free as in Freedom but not free as in beer.
You get to use the software for free subect to limitations (can't have more than N users, can't resell hosted access, etc), until N years from now, when the license reverts to GPL. Point releases restart the clock (so you have to fork the N year old version if Oracle acquired the company).
I'd be interested in a variant that reverts to BSD, but maybe that can't work for some reason. I haven't thought too hard about it.
"The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose."
Any limitations on use make the software non-Free.
Seriously though, you download it now, and there is a contractual obligation that the software will be GPL later. Stallman used to charge people for improvements to emacs. This is the same, but with an extended delivery timeline that (hopefully) leads to better Free software.
Also, note that once you pay, you get all the benefits / protections of the GPL, including redistribution of modifications after the timer expires.
I'm not sure if you can redistribute modifications immediately or not. I would certainly hope so! (Any money for modified versions would go to the author of the original version, and there is no "we're missing feature X" like there would be with open core / demoware so why should they block such things?)
Yes it does. "As you wish" means no limitations. It's a superset of "when you wish". By your argument all software is Free software, because eventually the copyright will expire.
Being GPL later is better than being proprietary for as long as possible, but until it happens it's still non-Free.
These companies much prefer to pay for support, even for open-source projects.
There have been open source projects that used it just as marketing tool and then shut down the open source version when they grew popular enough. There have been those which have severely limited the open source version to get people to buy the premium version which is hosted.
At the end you are dealing with locusts, they will consume anything of value to them for free without giving a damn about its implications to the future survival of the product. Altruism is nice, but it's not business savvy.
Look in the third paragraph from the end:
> I love free software and could not have built my site without it. But free web services are not like free software. If your free software project suddenly gets popular, you gain resources: testers, developers and people willing to pitch in. If your free website takes off, you lose resources. Your time is spent firefighting and your money all goes to the nice people at Linode.
And I realize that you don't want to bother with people that are not currently potential customers, but I'm just saying that you're locking entire countries out.
Figuring out the right scheme (and one that crosses borders) isn't easy though.
But it is still a gray area, as it could be classified as foreign currency.
Relevant data repeated here. Per-user revenue for some sites:
Google: $10.09
Facebook: $1.63 (although has since doubled)
LinkedIn: $1.53
Yahoo: $1.81
http://adage.com/article/digital/worth-facebook-google/29304...
Author claims the tool estimated that their value to Google alone would have been $200+ and explains why too.
The way to make the economics work is the same way the economics of cable TV work - bundling.
$20 per month per service seems like a ridiculously huge jump for services that are currently "free with advertising," though. Surely nobody is making $20 per user per month with advertising.
At $20 a month per service the bigger problem would be people like me who can afford it just fine but don't think most services provide nearly that much value.
There is much, much more of the web that I use for free, either because they have their own reasons for for not charging at all, or they appear to have enough of a paying base that I'm merely small-guilty but not worried, or because I don't care enough about them to think about the issue.
If I pay for something that I could have easily and legally gotten for free and then it's plastered in ads, either charge me more or revisit your business model. I want to see them stay around, yes, but I wasn't getting the value for my money that I expected to get.
I think, or at least hope, that we're in a transition period for large operations that are currently ad supported. If ads didn't suck up so much of my resources, and were benign and didn't track me, then I'd relent. But as it is, ads don't just buy space, they buy people and any information the ad networks can get away from collecting, gleaning or stealing. "Homey don't play dat."
Merely paying for a service does not ensure that the service will continue, and if your data or operations are integrated into a service then when it dies it can be anywhere between inconvenient to impossible to extract yourself, paid or not.
But that's the nature of the web especially, with its relative low barrier to entry. I shuddered when Fastmail was acquired by Opera, and was relieved when they split. Even old established IRL businesses come and go for various reasons.
Nothing in life is permanent, and so logically some of what you use and know is going to disappear in your lifetime.
mail, web site/blog (some blog services want a minimum of $10-15!), maybe git hosting, another 5 for a bookmark service (pocket is $5, though pinboard is only $1) a back-up solution, and so on and so on. Should I also have a paid subscription to my internet search and social network services?
That is dumbing HN down a lot. This community is much more than that: hackers share cool articles, have vibrant discussions and the comments section is probably the least toxic of all comments sections. YC related posts are very popular and YC itself is promoted heavily, but the community is much more than just YC.
Hell, as a casual user and a corporate employee, YC is the only startup incubator that I know of.
In other words, you take a free ride wile its there then you switch to some other solution. You might be irritated at first because you liked the tool and its workflow but that is the only downside which is not that serious as typically something similar will appear soon enough.
I totally agree with the logic of the article. And I do hope this will become a cultural thing. I just don't believe it will be widely accepted because of ingrained "free and open spirit".
I think, in practice, you'll be competing with fund-raising start-ups who provides free and better services with "free and open spirit" and lots of money ready to burn, after they took the large share of the market, small competitors will not be the only game in town, instead, they'll be out of the game.
That said, it's amazing that pinboard.in is still alive after so many bookmarking services closed. I guess the philosophy of Don't Be a Free User could work well on specific areas.
If some of these sources dry up because of lack of money, that's too bad, but no great loss, because many other sources of free, great information will arise to take their place.
There's always a free alternative to every service, especially web ones.
Based from his response here, I think he is just a troll.
As a customer, I feel entitled to take advantage of everything I can. I don't understand the negativity around it. Us consumers have a salary each month, and we are supposed to get everything we can out of it. It's that simple.
For example, I run Spotify with an ad blocker, so I don't have to pay for it. And years ago, when they limited the amount of minutes of music you could listen to every month, I made tons of accounts to bypass that limitation. Why? Because, in the unlikely case they go out of business, by then some other service would've appeared, run by someone who thinks he won't commit the same mistakes the owners of the previous service made.
Common sense says my system of abandoning/taking services is not sustainable in the long term, but by now it hasn't failed me. And I'm also sure a sizable percent of people do the same I do. Am I a troll just because I'm open about it?
Let's set aside any moral/ethical implications of ab/using free services for a moment.
The problem for you as a customer is that once the service closes it might take some time to find a new service.
Second, your time is valuable too. Making multiple free accounts to save $10 a month is an activity which might make perfect sense for a poor college student but would draw comparisons with Mr. Burns if you are a middle-aged high wage earner.
It took a while for amazon.com to get into pet food business.
When del.icio.us became slow and uncared for it took some time for me to find pinboard .
As defined: a person who habitually relies on or exploits others and gives nothing in return.
It's ok to use free services, to abuse them, especially if you are not capable of paying. It's understandable. A lot of people do that. But to be honest in saying that you don't really care about the company failing or if they go bankrupt for whatever reason even if you are an avid user because a new service will pop up that is free. Seems to be morally wrong.
Your reasoning also shows that you don't have your own company or you're not a developer creating or selling softwares. Because if you are, you would be afraid of people like you who will abuse your company the way you are abusing it now. This is just an assumption. I might be wrong.
> free web services are not like free software. If your free software project suddenly gets popular, you gain resources: testers, developers and people willing to pitch in. If your free website takes off, you lose resources. Your time is spent firefighting and your money all goes to the nice people at Linode.
It costs something like $60 a month in maintenance fees for 1 VPS. Double that and you are safe from hardware outages.
As a dating site for example, you don't need S3, cloud formation, etc.