6 ms·

It is no surprise but sound business reason that private repos will be available for free. For some background, check this HN classic: "Commoditize your comple

It is no surprise but sound business reason that private repos will be available for free. For some background, check this HN classic: "Commoditize your complements" (https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2 https://www.gwern.net/Complement#2)

dhh2106 8y ago
Interesting article. Any literature/thoughts on when to commoditize complements rather than trying to vertically integrate? Private repos might be a complement to github's other business, but it doesn't naturally follow that they should commoditize it in all situations
- sah2ed 8y ago
  You’d get a lot of value from reading an old but still relevant book from 1998: Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy by Hal Varian & Carl Shapiro that discusses several of these strategies. “Commoditize your complements” is a phrase popularized by Joel Spolsky but the book uses the broader of term: “maximize your value”. Commoditization is one of a few ways to maximize your value.
franciscop 8y ago
Very interesting article. It could be argued that the webapps/internet/browsers are now doing the same to the OS. For casual uses any OS is the same.
- xapata 8y ago
  Yes, Microsoft realized that long ago. Gates and Balmer prolonged the inevitable through monopoly power, but Nadella has accepted the future and is "turning the aircraft carrier." It's amazing that Microsoft came back to life from being a zombie company. In hindsight, it was such a large zombie that it had sufficient time to change business models. Somehow Sears wasn't. There's a business school case study and tenure buried in there.
  - pstuart 8y ago
    Sears seemed to be intentionally run into the ground so that Eddie Lampert could loot the assets: https://prospect.org/article/how-sears-was-gutted-its-own-ceo https://prospect.org/article/how-sears-was-gutted-its-own-ce...
    - kabdib 8y ago
      Whatever bad things you can say about Ballmer, he wasn't out to gut Microsoft. He simply made decisions that were short-sighted and insular. Well, and the review system (which caused a bunch of good people to leave for Google in Kirkland, and some other places). Once, I was doing an embedded system for a consumer product in the Xbox group. We started out trying to using Windows CE, and after three months of pushing that horrible mess up a hill [holy Toledo, what a steaming pile...] we ditched it in favor of something really simple that could actually do the job, instead of the politically correct thing that we'd been "encouraged" to do. (Honestly, words fail me at how badly designed and buggy the the whole WinCE code base was). At the time, Ballmer was all about everything having to be Windows. "Windows Foundation" for TV, "Windows Auto", Windows This-and-That. I joked that we wouldn't be allowed to ship our firmware until we named it something like "Windows Just An Event Loop And Some Interrupt Handlers".
      - profalseidol 8y ago
        Wait, so are you telling us he did in-fact went out to gut Microsoft via his arrogance?
        kabdib 8y ago
        Ballmer had some bad ideas, but he wanted Microsoft to succeed. He didn't see the attrition as a problem. The Sears folks are pirates, they don't give a shit about Sears and just want to extract as much money as they can. Big difference.
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        They named it wince, ‘nuff said.
meesles 8y ago
I've been browsing HN for maybe 6 years and haven't had the pleasure of seeing this article come up, thanks so much for sharing! Few articles have given me such a feeling of 'enlightenment'.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
The problem is - hosting repos, especially private ones, is not a 'complementary service' for Github. It's the core of their offer. Edit: example - Google paying for Chrome, Android - this is 'complementary'. Google giving away free personal ads on search ... 'core'. MSFT giving away free dev tools, Bing search - complementary. Giving away 'Windows Home' for free ... 'core'.
- sbarre 8y ago
  Github's core offering is not small private repos with max 3 contributors.
  - wbl 8y ago
    But it isn't a complement either. This is a classic loss leader.
    - idontpost 8y ago
      Having my personal projects on the same platform as my professional ones is complementary.
      - wbl 8y ago
        So is having cheap milk at the same grocery store you get bread at.
karmakaze 8y ago
All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its complements decrease. For the first time, developers can use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free. The free repos are kind of a loss leader to bring in users onto the platform to keep Github as the de facto provider. This is great news. I still prefer then issue management abilities of Gitlab nested projects, but choice and competition are good for the end user.

dhh2106 8y ago

Interesting article. Any literature/thoughts on when to commoditize complements rather than trying to vertically integrate? Private repos might be a complement to github's other business, but it doesn't naturally follow that they should commoditize it in all situations

sah2ed 8y ago
You’d get a lot of value from reading an old but still relevant book from 1998: Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy by Hal Varian & Carl Shapiro that discusses several of these strategies. “Commoditize your complements” is a phrase popularized by Joel Spolsky but the book uses the broader of term: “maximize your value”. Commoditization is one of a few ways to maximize your value.

franciscop 8y ago

Very interesting article. It could be argued that the webapps/internet/browsers are now doing the same to the OS. For casual uses any OS is the same.

xapata 8y ago
Yes, Microsoft realized that long ago. Gates and Balmer prolonged the inevitable through monopoly power, but Nadella has accepted the future and is "turning the aircraft carrier." It's amazing that Microsoft came back to life from being a zombie company. In hindsight, it was such a large zombie that it had sufficient time to change business models. Somehow Sears wasn't. There's a business school case study and tenure buried in there.
- pstuart 8y ago
  Sears seemed to be intentionally run into the ground so that Eddie Lampert could loot the assets: https://prospect.org/article/how-sears-was-gutted-its-own-ceo https://prospect.org/article/how-sears-was-gutted-its-own-ce...
  - kabdib 8y ago
    Whatever bad things you can say about Ballmer, he wasn't out to gut Microsoft. He simply made decisions that were short-sighted and insular. Well, and the review system (which caused a bunch of good people to leave for Google in Kirkland, and some other places). Once, I was doing an embedded system for a consumer product in the Xbox group. We started out trying to using Windows CE, and after three months of pushing that horrible mess up a hill [holy Toledo, what a steaming pile...] we ditched it in favor of something really simple that could actually do the job, instead of the politically correct thing that we'd been "encouraged" to do. (Honestly, words fail me at how badly designed and buggy the the whole WinCE code base was). At the time, Ballmer was all about everything having to be Windows. "Windows Foundation" for TV, "Windows Auto", Windows This-and-That. I joked that we wouldn't be allowed to ship our firmware until we named it something like "Windows Just An Event Loop And Some Interrupt Handlers".
    - profalseidol 8y ago
      Wait, so are you telling us he did in-fact went out to gut Microsoft via his arrogance?
      - kabdib 8y ago
        Ballmer had some bad ideas, but he wanted Microsoft to succeed. He didn't see the attrition as a problem. The Sears folks are pirates, they don't give a shit about Sears and just want to extract as much money as they can. Big difference.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      They named it wince, ‘nuff said.

meesles 8y ago

I've been browsing HN for maybe 6 years and haven't had the pleasure of seeing this article come up, thanks so much for sharing! Few articles have given me such a feeling of 'enlightenment'.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

The problem is - hosting repos, especially private ones, is not a 'complementary service' for Github. It's the core of their offer. Edit: example - Google paying for Chrome, Android - this is 'complementary'. Google giving away free personal ads on search ... 'core'. MSFT giving away free dev tools, Bing search - complementary. Giving away 'Windows Home' for free ... 'core'.

sbarre 8y ago
Github's core offering is not small private repos with max 3 contributors.
- wbl 8y ago
  But it isn't a complement either. This is a classic loss leader.
  - idontpost 8y ago
    Having my personal projects on the same platform as my professional ones is complementary.
    - wbl 8y ago
      So is having cheap milk at the same grocery store you get bread at.

karmakaze 8y ago

All else being equal, demand for a product increases when the prices of its complements decrease. For the first time, developers can use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free. The free repos are kind of a loss leader to bring in users onto the platform to keep Github as the de facto provider. This is great news. I still prefer then issue management abilities of Gitlab nested projects, but choice and competition are good for the end user.