4 ms·

I wouldn't compare Airtable to Google Spreadsheets or Excel for that matter. It looks more like a non-buggy Web 2.0 FoxPro, an RDBMS with a user-friendly UX.

prepend 9y ago
I wish it was a Web 2.0 FoxPro. It’s maybe the closest, but the price model is too much. You could buy foxpro for $1200 and create 100 databases with all sorts of janky workflows used within your small business. Paying $20/user/infinity for lower amounts of records doesn’t quite fit that niche. And so the hacked processes with Google Docs and now Excel365 continue. Hopefully with this new funding, Airtable can fix their pricing model and become successful as Access was.
- mlloyd 9y ago
  What's the price sweet spot here assuming unlimited (or near unlimited) records allowed?
  - prepend 9y ago
    For me, it’s a one time fee that I can self host or run against AWS or something of my choosing. But I’m pretty weird. I suspect one that has really simple and easily measureable prices. Like $500/year for a terabyte of storage in as many bases as you want. This should let most small businesses not worry about cost. Kind of like how FoxPro let people build so many solutions. The model now is not very predictable so it’s hard for small businesses to use. I think 365 charges $100/user/year for 1TB. That’s for write/edit permissions. Maybe double that or something. So 5 users would give 5TB total for $1000/year. Raw storage may not be the right measure, but it is better than cells since it is easier to report on. Just constantly showing raw or logical space. Imagine if gmail charges by number of email messages in inbox and number of recipients rather than storage. That would be hard to predict.
GFischer 9y ago
And FoxPro was great, so if Airtable is Web 2.0 FoxPro they might be onto something :)
- feiofh398r39rty 9y ago
  Yes, this is actually pretty surprising in the hindsight is 20/20 way. I disagree that FoxPro was great, it had too many bugs and issues for that, but the 'concept of FoxPro' was indeed great.
  - GFischer 9y ago
    You're right - FoxPro was a great concept, maybe not that much in execution.
chenster 9y ago
Excel still is excellent for the most tasks for most of us. It's not going away any time soon. Google certainly has tried with google sheets. They all might just co-exist in harmony fulfill each individual niche even with some overlap.

prepend 9y ago

I wish it was a Web 2.0 FoxPro. It’s maybe the closest, but the price model is too much. You could buy foxpro for $1200 and create 100 databases with all sorts of janky workflows used within your small business. Paying $20/user/infinity for lower amounts of records doesn’t quite fit that niche. And so the hacked processes with Google Docs and now Excel365 continue. Hopefully with this new funding, Airtable can fix their pricing model and become successful as Access was.

mlloyd 9y ago
What's the price sweet spot here assuming unlimited (or near unlimited) records allowed?
- prepend 9y ago
  For me, it’s a one time fee that I can self host or run against AWS or something of my choosing. But I’m pretty weird. I suspect one that has really simple and easily measureable prices. Like $500/year for a terabyte of storage in as many bases as you want. This should let most small businesses not worry about cost. Kind of like how FoxPro let people build so many solutions. The model now is not very predictable so it’s hard for small businesses to use. I think 365 charges $100/user/year for 1TB. That’s for write/edit permissions. Maybe double that or something. So 5 users would give 5TB total for $1000/year. Raw storage may not be the right measure, but it is better than cells since it is easier to report on. Just constantly showing raw or logical space. Imagine if gmail charges by number of email messages in inbox and number of recipients rather than storage. That would be hard to predict.

GFischer 9y ago

And FoxPro was great, so if Airtable is Web 2.0 FoxPro they might be onto something :)

feiofh398r39rty 9y ago
Yes, this is actually pretty surprising in the hindsight is 20/20 way. I disagree that FoxPro was great, it had too many bugs and issues for that, but the 'concept of FoxPro' was indeed great.
- GFischer 9y ago
  You're right - FoxPro was a great concept, maybe not that much in execution.

chenster 9y ago

Excel still is excellent for the most tasks for most of us. It's not going away any time soon. Google certainly has tried with google sheets. They all might just co-exist in harmony fulfill each individual niche even with some overlap.