I didn't get that from Marco's post at all. I heard a developer saying "stop blaming indie developers for accepting generous offers from companies and start supporting their products instead".
I wonder how the poo-pooing of anything that isn't a $10m+ funding or $1bn+ market cap business on sites like HN encourages people to think "well, hey, perhaps I should go join a business like that if mine can't be."
Poo-pooing is what babies do in their diapers.
On second thought, maybe you did have it right ;)
I'd look to the open source world for good geek tools, honestly. I think expecting people to sell them to us in the app stores just won't work. No one will buy this stuff at the $50/seat the developers would have to charge to avoid the Google and Facebook buyouts.
The only way to make that stuff is to sell it as some kind of "cloud" service where you make your money on eyeballs elsewhere.
And
No one will buy this stuff at the $50/seat the developers would have to charge to avoid the Google and Facebook buyouts.
Can you please re-state? For some reason I can't follow.
1. The minimum price to sustain development as standalone software is $50/seat.
2. Consumers will not pay $50/seat for this software.
3. Some businesses have been successful with cloud-based monetization.
4. Therefore, the best chance for success is to sell a cloud service, rather than standalone software.
What didn't you get? Both Macro's post and the parent are reasonable and non-contradictory. Marco says "I was only able to reject those offers because Instapaper is a healthy business" and the parent says "Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business".
My point is, you are disagreeing with two people in agreement. What you "heard" is a miscalculating brain that projected sentiments that don't exist.
Even so, if you take his advice and do what you can to support software you love to keep it alive, in the long run it may not be enough. Either way, my comment about why these things happen still stands.
It's not hard to bootstrap. The hard part is coming to terms with what is actually sustainable. It takes a while to figure that out.
> The hard part is coming to terms with what is actually sustainable. It takes a while to figure that out.
Exactly. And if it takes longer to figure out than the money you have to burn, then why not at least try for some sort of exit before giving up completely?