8 ms·

Don't Be a Free User (2011)

202 points by oskarth 10y ago

a3n 10y ago
I pay for pinboard, for exactly this reason. I like it enough that I want it to be there tomorrow. Same with LastPass, Fastmail (don't know if they still have free accounts), The Guardian and The NYT. 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.
- freehunter 10y ago
  I agree with what you're saying, but I stopped paying for the NYT for similar reasons. My subscription isn't enough to keep them in business, so either I'm not paying enough or they're wasting my money. 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.
  - a3n 10y ago
    Agreed, my sub fee doesn't pay for the NYT's existence. And worse, I block ads. I'm sure I wouldn't pay the actual fee required to support their current operations. 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."
alt3red 10y ago
I think many services become popular and see wide adoption, because they are free. When the free element goes away there will not be nearly as many users willing to try it or to use it and love it so much that they will recommend it.
_h_o_d_ 10y ago
Nothing changes. Except, perhaps Facebook might be around a while. What are your thresholds for relying on a service? I still backup my google and fb data.
ehnto 10y ago
HTTPS error when trying to view. Chrome isn't happy with the ciphers supported.
- jakub_g 10y ago
  Http works though. I pinged them on Twitter, but maybe mods should change the URL to http.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
andrewclunn 10y ago
Still gonna use Linux, sorry. There should be a disclaimer, "Does not apply to Open Source projects."
- wmeredith 10y ago
  He addresses this in the article.
  - andrewclunn 10y ago
    Oh wow. Read it but somehow missed that. Well I'll leave the foot in mouth comment for posterity.
    - lucb1e 10y ago
      I missed it as well. For future readers: > 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.
      - lqdc13 10y ago
        It depends on the service, but I think the vast majority of free products are over engineered in terms of using cloud services. 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.
    - andrewclunn 10y ago
      Oh good apparently owning up to a mistake and leaving it up should also get downvoted. Gotta love this community.
      - sleepychu 10y ago
thatlooper 10y ago
So what about HackerNews?
- moolcool 10y ago
  I don't think of HN like a product meant to make money though, more like a big ad for YC
  - anondon 10y ago
    > more like a big ad for YC 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.
    - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
      He doesn’t mean Hacker News promotes YC in the literal sense. He means Hacker News is a popular hub for developers which are a target audience of YC. By association, Hacker News as a property of YC helps YC stay in the minds of developers.
    - omegaham 10y ago
      I think the point he's making is that its business purpose is advertising for YC. Come for the discussion, and if you happen to have an idea, YC is the first thing in your mind that pops into place when you think, "How can I get this off the ground?" Hell, as a casual user and a corporate employee, YC is the only startup incubator that I know of.
  - earlyriser 10y ago
    A big ad and recruiting board for the right demography.
akjainaj 10y ago
I am a proud free user. When a service closes because of bankruptcy, a new one always appears. Or maybe two or three. So who cares? There's always a free alternative to every service, especially web ones.
- devoply 10y ago
  Thank you Mr. Locust, that will do.
  - aub3bhat 10y ago
    Its not predatory but rather a symbiotic relationship. Customer/Users, Organizations (Management/Investors), Employees all are inter dependent on each other a view of the world that devotes attention to one of the three groups is misguided.
  - gilrain 10y ago
    A workable analogy only if farmers were actually clamoring to market their fields to locusts.
    - devoply 10y ago
      I was referring to this: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/
      - gilrain 10y ago
        Ah! Thanks.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Michie 10y ago
    @devoply, I think the best term to describe akjainaj is a parasite. A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. Based from his response here, I think he is just a troll.
countryqt30 10y ago
SUMMARY: The basic essence of the article is: "have a positive per-unit cost argument from day 1" There was much said for and against this very topic already and now you can decide, once again, for yourself. Nothing unique in this article, sorry.
nerdponx 10y ago
This is why web services should be open source and available for self hosting: - 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.
- devoply 10y ago
  Going open source does not save any project. It's just a different way of doing things. If the project is not profitable, it will still go under while being open source with a hosted business model. The question is does this sort of model work with _your_ project. 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.
  - camkego 10y ago
    The comparison to locusts is quite beautiful.
- dkyc 10y ago
  My experience running a project/company like you describe: 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.
anondon 10y ago
The term "free software" is used rather ambiguously in the article. The free software that is referred to in the article is free as in beer. The more commonly used meaning of the word (among hackers) implies free as in freedom. If you want to learn more refer here https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
- nrb 10y ago
  It seems like the author is indeed referring to Free Software, but then makes a comparison to free-as-in-beer web services.
  - gregmac 10y ago
    I disagree: it seems like the author is completely unaware of the "free-as-in-freedom" definition, and all usages of "free software" refer to free-as-in-beer web services.
    - wiredfool 10y ago
      I'd not take any bet that maciej is unaware of any major tech movement. 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.
      - kiba 10y ago
        Can we live in a world where we get paid for writing free software?
        rini17 10y ago
        Yes we do. You can double-license, you can offer consultancy services, there are options.
Raed667 10y ago
These arguments fall apart when you're living in a country with no access to online, international payment methods. 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.
- clamprecht 10y ago
  Could Bitcoin solve this?
  - Raed667 10y ago
    To some extent, yes; You could buy Bitcoin p2p locally. But it is still a gray area, as it could be classified as foreign currency.
- 0xCMP 10y ago
  So it needs ads then? Or it needs to be self hosted? What's the alternative for someone to build a business on the internet like pinboard does?
  - Raed667 10y ago
    I don't know if there is a generic answer to this problem.
  - jeremyjh 10y ago
    What would be the point in advertising in a country without payment infrastructure? You would have to find local businesses who want to advertise online and who would also have barriers to paying you.
    - Raed667 10y ago
      In Tunisia for example, there is a booming payment infrastructure. It is just limited to local currency and local stores. Local Google and Facebook ads are flourishing.
- 10y ago
joelthelion 10y ago
Cool, you can pay and be screwed a second time when the company is sold anyways.
- msandford 10y ago
  It's some years later and pinboard shows no signs of slowing down, at least as far as I can tell. The guy who runs it makes a good living and he plans on keeping it going indefinitely.
  - a3n 10y ago
    I believe what you say about pinboard (and I pay), but Joel makes a factual observation. I can't blame anyone for using a service for free, when free is an official offering. 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.
resoluteteeth 10y ago
I think this made sense in 2011, but now the trend of acquihires has gotten so out of hand that it hardly makes a difference; products making plenty of revenue are still being instantly shut down after being bought out.
- arcaster 10y ago
  VSCO is a curious case.
danieldk 10y ago
Unfortunately, it often seems that with too little money, a service disappears due to bankruptcy, with too much money a service disappears due to talent acquisition. 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.
- user5994461 10y ago
  > Windows has terrific backwards compatibility Windows is most backward compatible software in existence.
  - edp 10y ago
    I think that's what danieldk meant. Terrific != terrible (english is not my primary language so I might be wrong)
    - joshyeager 10y ago
      You are correct
    - TAForObvReasons 10y ago
      I think user5994461 meant that calling windows backwards compatibility "terrific" doesn't do it justice. My dad wrote software more than 2 decades ago that, amazingly enough, still runs on Windows 10 and he still uses it.
      - OskarS 10y ago
        Out of curiosity, what is that software?
4684499 10y ago
I thought people who "clone them" was considered unethical? a copycat? And then if you start charging money from it, well, be read for the storm... 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.
adjwilli 10y ago
Polly Lingual https://pollylingu.al https://pollylingu.al is a little mom-and-pop software creation. We're probably in the lightest shade of green on that chart. Someone help us!
SFJulie 10y ago
I am gonna stop giving books at my local library and burn my library card. OOps, it sounds stupid. Okay then, I am gonna stop taking first aid lessons and helping/be helped by benevolent persons. Ooops, still sound stupid. I am gonna stop eating my wife bread without paying her. Still sounds stupid. I am gonna stop voting because it is free! And counting ballots for free! I give up. It is amazing how people that are specialist of hammers see every problems as a nail, and may fail to understand that our time is a valuable. For instance, free services of exchange of native seeds is nowadays the only way to conserve and preserve very important biological diversity and help compensate regulations made to accommodate Bayer/Monsanto racket on seeds. And it is free, so that it lowers the friction in taking part in the global system. Most actual services nowadays are close to extorsion and developping free as a beer alternative where you exchange time for a service help keep alive important stuff such as culture, seeds, knowledge, freedom... software. Stuff money cannot buy. We don't need the market every where in our life. Economy is not what drives our existence, else why have kids? They are a cost center. Let's kill them.
wodenokoto 10y ago
While I don't disagree with the sentiment, I do feel like $5 here and $5 there in monthly charges quickly adds up. 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?
Grue3 10y ago
Meh. I don't like the subscription model. I have to pay for too many things monthly. Every silly web service is probably not worth the headache of trusting them my credit card details. So I will subscribe to as few services as possible. If there's a lifetime subscription option, I will consider it.
pmoriarty 10y ago
There's a glut of information on the internet. Great information, even. Free great information. The scarcity of free, great information is over. 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.
saycheese 10y ago
Average user can't afford pay for all the free service they receive. If each user had to pay $20 a month for even only the top twenty websites they use and this would be beyond the reach of the average user; Google, Facebook, Free Apps, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Twitter, etc.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- avian 10y ago
  Is there a way to actually estimate how much money I would have to give per month to compensate for the ads I see on the web? Perhaps some browser plugin that counts ad impressions? I doubt that any one web site makes $20 per month from my visits.
  - saycheese 10y ago
    Appears AVG used to have an estimator called PrivacyFix, but site is now dead. Here's a story covering it: http://adage.com/article/digital/worth-facebook-google/293042/ 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.
  - candiodari 10y ago
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/tristanlouis/2013/08/31/how-much-is-a-user-worth/#d6e57f492a9b http://www.forbes.com/sites/tristanlouis/2013/08/31/how-much... 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
    - avian 10y ago
      Interesting. Note that these numbers are per quarter, so according to this, average revenue even for Google is only around $3 per user per month.
- jlarocco 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
majkinetor 10y ago
Its actually very simple: do not use web services that do not provide data liberation into some standard format. 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.
newsat13 10y ago
Reminds me of trello. They gave everything free and made it so hard to pay them money.. And now they are done. Slack is next.

202 points by oskarth 10y ago

a3n 10y ago

I pay for pinboard, for exactly this reason. I like it enough that I want it to be there tomorrow. Same with LastPass, Fastmail (don't know if they still have free accounts), The Guardian and The NYT. 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.

freehunter 10y ago
I agree with what you're saying, but I stopped paying for the NYT for similar reasons. My subscription isn't enough to keep them in business, so either I'm not paying enough or they're wasting my money. 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.
- a3n 10y ago
  Agreed, my sub fee doesn't pay for the NYT's existence. And worse, I block ads. I'm sure I wouldn't pay the actual fee required to support their current operations. 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."

alt3red 10y ago

I think many services become popular and see wide adoption, because they are free. When the free element goes away there will not be nearly as many users willing to try it or to use it and love it so much that they will recommend it.

_h_o_d_ 10y ago

Nothing changes. Except, perhaps Facebook might be around a while. What are your thresholds for relying on a service? I still backup my google and fb data.

ehnto 10y ago

HTTPS error when trying to view. Chrome isn't happy with the ciphers supported.

jakub_g 10y ago
Http works though. I pinged them on Twitter, but maybe mods should change the URL to http.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

andrewclunn 10y ago

Still gonna use Linux, sorry. There should be a disclaimer, "Does not apply to Open Source projects."

wmeredith 10y ago
He addresses this in the article.
- andrewclunn 10y ago
  Oh wow. Read it but somehow missed that. Well I'll leave the foot in mouth comment for posterity.
  - lucb1e 10y ago
    I missed it as well. For future readers: > 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.
    - lqdc13 10y ago
      It depends on the service, but I think the vast majority of free products are over engineered in terms of using cloud services. 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.
  - andrewclunn 10y ago
    Oh good apparently owning up to a mistake and leaving it up should also get downvoted. Gotta love this community.
    - sleepychu 10y ago

thatlooper 10y ago

So what about HackerNews?

moolcool 10y ago
I don't think of HN like a product meant to make money though, more like a big ad for YC
- anondon 10y ago
  > more like a big ad for YC 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.
  - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
    He doesn’t mean Hacker News promotes YC in the literal sense. He means Hacker News is a popular hub for developers which are a target audience of YC. By association, Hacker News as a property of YC helps YC stay in the minds of developers.
  - omegaham 10y ago
    I think the point he's making is that its business purpose is advertising for YC. Come for the discussion, and if you happen to have an idea, YC is the first thing in your mind that pops into place when you think, "How can I get this off the ground?" Hell, as a casual user and a corporate employee, YC is the only startup incubator that I know of.
- earlyriser 10y ago
  A big ad and recruiting board for the right demography.

akjainaj 10y ago

I am a proud free user. When a service closes because of bankruptcy, a new one always appears. Or maybe two or three. So who cares? There's always a free alternative to every service, especially web ones.

devoply 10y ago
Thank you Mr. Locust, that will do.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  Its not predatory but rather a symbiotic relationship. Customer/Users, Organizations (Management/Investors), Employees all are inter dependent on each other a view of the world that devotes attention to one of the three groups is misguided.
- gilrain 10y ago
  A workable analogy only if farmers were actually clamoring to market their fields to locusts.
  - devoply 10y ago
    I was referring to this: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/
    - gilrain 10y ago
      Ah! Thanks.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Michie 10y ago
  @devoply, I think the best term to describe akjainaj is a parasite. A parasite is an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense. Based from his response here, I think he is just a troll.

countryqt30 10y ago

SUMMARY: The basic essence of the article is: "have a positive per-unit cost argument from day 1" There was much said for and against this very topic already and now you can decide, once again, for yourself. Nothing unique in this article, sorry.

nerdponx 10y ago

This is why web services should be open source and available for self hosting: - 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.

devoply 10y ago
Going open source does not save any project. It's just a different way of doing things. If the project is not profitable, it will still go under while being open source with a hosted business model. The question is does this sort of model work with _your_ project. 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.
- camkego 10y ago
  The comparison to locusts is quite beautiful.
dkyc 10y ago
My experience running a project/company like you describe: 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.

anondon 10y ago

The term "free software" is used rather ambiguously in the article. The free software that is referred to in the article is free as in beer. The more commonly used meaning of the word (among hackers) implies free as in freedom. If you want to learn more refer here https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

nrb 10y ago
It seems like the author is indeed referring to Free Software, but then makes a comparison to free-as-in-beer web services.
- gregmac 10y ago
  I disagree: it seems like the author is completely unaware of the "free-as-in-freedom" definition, and all usages of "free software" refer to free-as-in-beer web services.
  - wiredfool 10y ago
    I'd not take any bet that maciej is unaware of any major tech movement. 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.
    - kiba 10y ago
      Can we live in a world where we get paid for writing free software?
      - rini17 10y ago
        Yes we do. You can double-license, you can offer consultancy services, there are options.

Raed667 10y ago

These arguments fall apart when you're living in a country with no access to online, international payment methods. 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.

clamprecht 10y ago
Could Bitcoin solve this?
- Raed667 10y ago
  To some extent, yes; You could buy Bitcoin p2p locally. But it is still a gray area, as it could be classified as foreign currency.
0xCMP 10y ago
So it needs ads then? Or it needs to be self hosted? What's the alternative for someone to build a business on the internet like pinboard does?
- Raed667 10y ago
  I don't know if there is a generic answer to this problem.
- jeremyjh 10y ago
  What would be the point in advertising in a country without payment infrastructure? You would have to find local businesses who want to advertise online and who would also have barriers to paying you.
  - Raed667 10y ago
    In Tunisia for example, there is a booming payment infrastructure. It is just limited to local currency and local stores. Local Google and Facebook ads are flourishing.
10y ago

joelthelion 10y ago

Cool, you can pay and be screwed a second time when the company is sold anyways.

msandford 10y ago
It's some years later and pinboard shows no signs of slowing down, at least as far as I can tell. The guy who runs it makes a good living and he plans on keeping it going indefinitely.
- a3n 10y ago
  I believe what you say about pinboard (and I pay), but Joel makes a factual observation. I can't blame anyone for using a service for free, when free is an official offering. 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.

resoluteteeth 10y ago

I think this made sense in 2011, but now the trend of acquihires has gotten so out of hand that it hardly makes a difference; products making plenty of revenue are still being instantly shut down after being bought out.

arcaster 10y ago
VSCO is a curious case.

danieldk 10y ago

Unfortunately, it often seems that with too little money, a service disappears due to bankruptcy, with too much money a service disappears due to talent acquisition. 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.

user5994461 10y ago
> Windows has terrific backwards compatibility Windows is most backward compatible software in existence.
- edp 10y ago
  I think that's what danieldk meant. Terrific != terrible (english is not my primary language so I might be wrong)
  - joshyeager 10y ago
    You are correct
  - TAForObvReasons 10y ago
    I think user5994461 meant that calling windows backwards compatibility "terrific" doesn't do it justice. My dad wrote software more than 2 decades ago that, amazingly enough, still runs on Windows 10 and he still uses it.
    - OskarS 10y ago
      Out of curiosity, what is that software?

4684499 10y ago

I thought people who "clone them" was considered unethical? a copycat? And then if you start charging money from it, well, be read for the storm... 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.

adjwilli 10y ago

Polly Lingual https://pollylingu.al https://pollylingu.al is a little mom-and-pop software creation. We're probably in the lightest shade of green on that chart. Someone help us!

SFJulie 10y ago

I am gonna stop giving books at my local library and burn my library card. OOps, it sounds stupid. Okay then, I am gonna stop taking first aid lessons and helping/be helped by benevolent persons. Ooops, still sound stupid. I am gonna stop eating my wife bread without paying her. Still sounds stupid. I am gonna stop voting because it is free! And counting ballots for free! I give up. It is amazing how people that are specialist of hammers see every problems as a nail, and may fail to understand that our time is a valuable. For instance, free services of exchange of native seeds is nowadays the only way to conserve and preserve very important biological diversity and help compensate regulations made to accommodate Bayer/Monsanto racket on seeds. And it is free, so that it lowers the friction in taking part in the global system. Most actual services nowadays are close to extorsion and developping free as a beer alternative where you exchange time for a service help keep alive important stuff such as culture, seeds, knowledge, freedom... software. Stuff money cannot buy. We don't need the market every where in our life. Economy is not what drives our existence, else why have kids? They are a cost center. Let's kill them.

wodenokoto 10y ago

While I don't disagree with the sentiment, I do feel like $5 here and $5 there in monthly charges quickly adds up. 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?

Grue3 10y ago

Meh. I don't like the subscription model. I have to pay for too many things monthly. Every silly web service is probably not worth the headache of trusting them my credit card details. So I will subscribe to as few services as possible. If there's a lifetime subscription option, I will consider it.

pmoriarty 10y ago

There's a glut of information on the internet. Great information, even. Free great information. The scarcity of free, great information is over. 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.

saycheese 10y ago

Average user can't afford pay for all the free service they receive. If each user had to pay $20 a month for even only the top twenty websites they use and this would be beyond the reach of the average user; Google, Facebook, Free Apps, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Twitter, etc.

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avian 10y ago
Is there a way to actually estimate how much money I would have to give per month to compensate for the ads I see on the web? Perhaps some browser plugin that counts ad impressions? I doubt that any one web site makes $20 per month from my visits.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Appears AVG used to have an estimator called PrivacyFix, but site is now dead. Here's a story covering it: http://adage.com/article/digital/worth-facebook-google/293042/ 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.
- candiodari 10y ago
  http://www.forbes.com/sites/tristanlouis/2013/08/31/how-much-is-a-user-worth/#d6e57f492a9b http://www.forbes.com/sites/tristanlouis/2013/08/31/how-much... 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
  - avian 10y ago
    Interesting. Note that these numbers are per quarter, so according to this, average revenue even for Google is only around $3 per user per month.
jlarocco 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

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majkinetor 10y ago

Its actually very simple: do not use web services that do not provide data liberation into some standard format. 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.

newsat13 10y ago

Reminds me of trello. They gave everything free and made it so hard to pay them money.. And now they are done. Slack is next.