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Comment by CaptainOfCoit | Hacker News Reader

I remember when one of the "Core Goals" of Postman was "Complete control over your data - Keep simple JSON based data formats which can be exported and shared as per user needs".

https://web.archive.org/web/20140604204111/http://www.getpos...

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not possible once you sign away your allegiance to a VC

sign away means getting rid of vcs.

I read that as "sign your allegiances away from their current counterparts (e.g. the user) and towards the VCs instead".

I understood it as giving it up, not getting rid of. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Give+It+Away

There seems to be a common theme here. Some project gets traction, it works very well. Then they got VC money and the project turn to crap for the community. Not all VC project, but seems to be common theme. I also aware that devs need funding to keep a project going for the long run. Are there any better alternatives for funding now days?

Not sure if this applies to Postman specifically, but I think a lot of software projects start out largely as hobby projects, and might not have even had an ambition of making serious money out of it, and as such there's no reason to be hostile to the community.

Then a VC fund gives these developers a dumptruck full of money and expect returns immediately afterward. Something like Postman likely doesn't make a ton of money unless they're doing something anti-consumer like selling data.

One of the things I've thought about for startups are things with the general theme of "complete control over your data", how could I write something like this into the articles of incorporation (or similar) to make some of those values at least somewhat irrevocable?

When Postman started becoming shit, I started using Insomnia, which is also turning into shit now.

Good thing is that we can start using Insomnium now.

It is unmaintained.

This is the cost of devs focusing on corporate gains and not their craft.

I want to judge the devs for it but if a VC walked up to me with a bag full of cash and the opportunity to work full time on a passion project I can’t be anywhere near sure I’d say no.

That bag full of cash will keep being a bag full of cash but the passion project will likely become driven by whoever hands you the bag and will head towards their goals, not yours. Anyway you'll keep the cash. It's not different from what the vast majority of us do with our jobs every day.

Devs have to eat and if someone offers you a life altering amount of money to work on their hobby project, a lot of them would probably take it. It's hard to turn down something that might assure your family a comfortable life.

That's all good, and I hope they're happy, but they shouldn't expect their audience to stick around if they start to ruin the project that got them there.

This is not what I said. I meant that users should contribute and not expect FOSS projects as a separate channel of getting material for their corporate work.

Sure, but why does it always have to lead to users getting the short end of the stick? Why can't they accept money and NOT screw over the users? And if the choice is between "Take VC money and screw users" and "Reject VC money and happy users", why do 99% of the people take the first option? They're most likely software developers (as this is the context), so it isn't really a choice between "uncomfortable life" or "comfortable life", there is something more going on here.

Do you apply the same logic to your plumber? Your accountant? The 'craft' is something you do for customers in order to make money to eat.

The plumber doesn't start to install additional pipes that require an annual fee, or spying on me "because you know, nothing to hide", or any other nonsense we are seeing in software.

Which is why plumbers don't get VC money and salaries aren't as high.

Why you and other devs say Insomnia is unmaintained?

There has been a release in september, issues has been solved within last month, and multiple pull requests has been managed (merged and rejected) also recently.

Maybe you refer to issues specific to a platform? Thanks in advance.

Insomnium

I heard Bruno is good, but haven’t used it. Apparently everything is in a file, which is an appreciable idea.

I switched to Bruno, it's pretty nice, no complaints.

Been using Bruno. It’s good, only complaint is it has some dark mode quirks.

I've been using Bruno for a couple of years, there are some rough edges but overall it's very good.

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