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So I love Keybase unconditionally and if you guys weren't rolling in physical offices (and not one in Boston) I'd have been beating down your door to come work

So I love Keybase unconditionally and if you guys weren't rolling in physical offices (and not one in Boston) I'd have been beating down your door to come work there--I think what Keybase is doing is important and it's something I'd love to work on. But I have a serious question that maybe you can answer, and it's something everybody who I've showed this to has asked me: How is Keybase gonna make money? How am I assured that this, and everything else in my Keybase storage, is going to be there in six months? Like, I still have a private server in a closet in my apartment that syncs all the stuff I trust Keybase with because I don't know what the business-side failure case is. You guys should be taking my money, is what I'm saying. Also probably hiring me. But definitely taking my money.

Osmium 9y ago
> You guys should be taking my money, is what I'm saying. Completely agreed. The reason I don't use Keybase more than I do is because I half expect them to be acquired/something else to happen. Would gladly give them my $10/mo. for a 1TB instead of Dropbox. With that said, I completely understand why they aren't right now -- maybe they're not going after the consumer market, maybe they don't want to box themselves in with customer support obligations, etc. But I really would like to use them.
- eropple 9y ago
  For sure. I would give them my ten bucks a month for the 100GB I get for free.
  - chias 9y ago
    IIRC we get 10 gigs for free... unless that changed at some point?
    - Zpalmtree 9y ago
      >You can have as many repositories as you want, but the total for your personal repositories can't exceed 100GB. Maybe this applies only for the git?
      - mattimo 9y ago
        It may, I see 250GB available for my keybase files.
malgorithms 9y ago
We believe the right long-term answer for Keybase is finding a way to charge large corporations and offer pretty much everything else for free. Obviously there would have to be some paid tier if you really wanted 10TB of storage or something, but very few people want that right now. We're still just getting started. Of course to achieve our goal, we'll also have to find a way to distinguish communities - which we'll want to use Keybase for free - and companies. Many of us on the team have come from ad-supported businesses and we really, really never want to do that again. I personally guarantee I will never be a "publisher" again. Fortunately that just can't work with Keybase, so no fears there. But charging for anything on Keybase right now would be a big mistake. We only have ~180,000 users, and we want to bring crypto to everyone. That basically means making products we believe are better. Another way of looking at your concern: I think if we were charging right now, it wouldn't actually decrease the odds we disappeared in a few years. It might distract our attention from working on the best product and cause our bloody demise. So maybe we're not choosing the path that gives you the highest impression of safety, but I think we actually are.
- eropple 9y ago
  OK, awesome. I'm glad you wrote this, because this makes me feel a heck of a lot better about using Keybase. This was in a way my hunch, but I figured--this is something good and cool, I want to make sure it stays good and cool. =) Thanks for the reply.
- r0ze-at-hn 9y ago
  > Many of us on the team have come from ad-supported businesses and we really, really never want to do that again. I personally guarantee I will never be a "publisher" again. So prove it. Provide a way that customers can try to give you money for solving their problems. Even if it is just a dummy static page with a form to contact your "sales" department, really show that you will be here for the longer term.
  - sb8244 9y ago
    Putting up a fake sales page isn't a sales strategy and wouldn't prove anything. If anything, it could add to the distraction. Sales and being around long term are more complicated and won't simply be proven to you because it's what you want. It requires more vision and coherence than that.
r0ze-at-hn 9y ago
100% agreed. Hosting sensitive git repositories is problem that companies and people are willing to pay $$$ for and stuff that is free has a tendency to go away after a few years. Heck don't bother putting any technical work into it or anything (aka work) and continue being free, but allow me to have a "paying account" or whatever. Pretty much if you are providing value let me prove it by giving you some cash.
dahart 9y ago
@malgorithm's answer is fantastic, just wanted to add some side-comments... > How am I assured [?] You're not, even if they start making money. Sucks, but true. > You guys should be taking my money One way to pay, if you want to help ensure their success & longevity, is to evangelize for them, and get other people hooked on their product. Getting other people hooked on it like you are and seeing the potential and get over the adoption humps... that's valuable! They're not taking money because it raises the barrier to entry, and growth is most important. Pay them by helping them grow.
- andrewla 9y ago
  It's valuable, but not in the capital sense. Each person you get hooked on their product increases their burn rate, and both makes them more attractive as an acquisition (which is scary for users) and more desperate for cash (which makes acquiescing to acquisition more tempting). Without a road to profitability (or at least a road to revenue) even attracting equity is difficult; investors who enter with that knowledge will be looking to exit through acquisition, since that's basically the only way to exit, other than just getting more capital.
archon810 9y ago
https://keybase.io/jobs https://keybase.io/jobs

Osmium 9y ago

> You guys should be taking my money, is what I'm saying. Completely agreed. The reason I don't use Keybase more than I do is because I half expect them to be acquired/something else to happen. Would gladly give them my $10/mo. for a 1TB instead of Dropbox. With that said, I completely understand why they aren't right now -- maybe they're not going after the consumer market, maybe they don't want to box themselves in with customer support obligations, etc. But I really would like to use them.

eropple 9y ago
For sure. I would give them my ten bucks a month for the 100GB I get for free.
- chias 9y ago
  IIRC we get 10 gigs for free... unless that changed at some point?
  - Zpalmtree 9y ago
    >You can have as many repositories as you want, but the total for your personal repositories can't exceed 100GB. Maybe this applies only for the git?
    - mattimo 9y ago
      It may, I see 250GB available for my keybase files.

malgorithms 9y ago

We believe the right long-term answer for Keybase is finding a way to charge large corporations and offer pretty much everything else for free. Obviously there would have to be some paid tier if you really wanted 10TB of storage or something, but very few people want that right now. We're still just getting started. Of course to achieve our goal, we'll also have to find a way to distinguish communities - which we'll want to use Keybase for free - and companies. Many of us on the team have come from ad-supported businesses and we really, really never want to do that again. I personally guarantee I will never be a "publisher" again. Fortunately that just can't work with Keybase, so no fears there. But charging for anything on Keybase right now would be a big mistake. We only have ~180,000 users, and we want to bring crypto to everyone. That basically means making products we believe are better. Another way of looking at your concern: I think if we were charging right now, it wouldn't actually decrease the odds we disappeared in a few years. It might distract our attention from working on the best product and cause our bloody demise. So maybe we're not choosing the path that gives you the highest impression of safety, but I think we actually are.

eropple 9y ago
OK, awesome. I'm glad you wrote this, because this makes me feel a heck of a lot better about using Keybase. This was in a way my hunch, but I figured--this is something good and cool, I want to make sure it stays good and cool. =) Thanks for the reply.
r0ze-at-hn 9y ago
> Many of us on the team have come from ad-supported businesses and we really, really never want to do that again. I personally guarantee I will never be a "publisher" again. So prove it. Provide a way that customers can try to give you money for solving their problems. Even if it is just a dummy static page with a form to contact your "sales" department, really show that you will be here for the longer term.
- sb8244 9y ago
  Putting up a fake sales page isn't a sales strategy and wouldn't prove anything. If anything, it could add to the distraction. Sales and being around long term are more complicated and won't simply be proven to you because it's what you want. It requires more vision and coherence than that.

r0ze-at-hn 9y ago

100% agreed. Hosting sensitive git repositories is problem that companies and people are willing to pay $$$ for and stuff that is free has a tendency to go away after a few years. Heck don't bother putting any technical work into it or anything (aka work) and continue being free, but allow me to have a "paying account" or whatever. Pretty much if you are providing value let me prove it by giving you some cash.

dahart 9y ago

@malgorithm's answer is fantastic, just wanted to add some side-comments... > How am I assured [?] You're not, even if they start making money. Sucks, but true. > You guys should be taking my money One way to pay, if you want to help ensure their success & longevity, is to evangelize for them, and get other people hooked on their product. Getting other people hooked on it like you are and seeing the potential and get over the adoption humps... that's valuable! They're not taking money because it raises the barrier to entry, and growth is most important. Pay them by helping them grow.

andrewla 9y ago
It's valuable, but not in the capital sense. Each person you get hooked on their product increases their burn rate, and both makes them more attractive as an acquisition (which is scary for users) and more desperate for cash (which makes acquiescing to acquisition more tempting). Without a road to profitability (or at least a road to revenue) even attracting equity is difficult; investors who enter with that knowledge will be looking to exit through acquisition, since that's basically the only way to exit, other than just getting more capital.

archon810 9y ago

https://keybase.io/jobs https://keybase.io/jobs