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Comment by LeanderK | Hacker News Reader

Wow, i think 25% is more than enough, they don't have costs that justify 25%. It's just their monopoly that allows them to charge that much.

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Monopoly in what sense? There is certainly healthy competition in the hosted Git repository space.

Not really. There are a couple of also-rans but I'd be amazed if GitHub had less than 95% of the market.

You mean the ones that delete their databases without backups?

I assume you are referring to GitLab, so yes. GitLab and Bitbucket are both actively releasing new features and have sizable paid user bases. GitHub is the market leader, no question, but it not nearly a monopoly.

"Market" is an interesting concept here.

Do you compare all usage, or just their hosted versions (i.e. do on-premise installs count)?

Do you compare all usage, or just paid usage?

Can a company that's not even close to profitable be considered a "market leader"?

"Can a company that's not even close to profitable be considered a "market leader"?"

Sure it can. Uber and Twilio are generally considered, far and away, as market leaders in their respective spaces; Uber is massively unprofitable and Twilio was operating at a loss at the time of its IPO.

Market leadership is a function of production and capacity, not profitability.

It is not uncommon in business to pay a premium for access to a pool of qualified potential buyers. 25% pays not only for the single conversion but all the other exposures and access to the market. So 25% doesn't seem that bad to me.

A monopoly that is losing over $9M a month.

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