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Indeed obvious to some but necessary to hammer until everyone gets it — especially the business types who make decisions, as new devs themselves would quickly g
by K0SM0S 7y ago
Indeed obvious to some but necessary to hammer until everyone gets it — especially the business types who make decisions, as new devs themselves would quickly grow to learn this.
> What ever they are offering cost them money to develop, but they did not do that as a charity.
True! Yet... I keep thinking about `http` (the protocol), or Apache, IRC, and countless other software techs that were just 'given' to (and are maintained by) the world, courtesy of their makers, and/or bodies like IETF work groups, etc.
Case in point: "social" is basic at an elementary level (it's just CRUD, over-the-network), but at scale becomes insanely costly. The limitation/exclusivity factor thus doesn't seem to be software magic but rather infrastructure, piles of money, before sustainability or profitability come into play. This is what the monopolies stem from, only compounded by some Meltcafe/"network" effect (friction to switch, passive positive peer pressure inwards, passive negative outwards).
So in thinking of an alternative future path for social tools (SDK) and meta-tools (platforms, interop, work groups, etc), I think it's worth considering the infrastructure problem first. My money is on distributed and (partially but 'enough') decentralized systems (think bittorrent, tor, even DNS fundamentally), but regardless it belongs to the wider category of mutualization of resources (cloud vs on-prems debate, E2E crypt, etc). The solution must be preferable in terms of cost otherwise it's just not gonna happen.
- dylan604 7y ago> True! Yet... I keep thinking about `http` (the protocol), or Apache, IRC, and countless other software techs that were just 'given' to (and are maintained by) the world, courtesy of their makers, and/or bodies like IETF work groups, etc. The difference here is that the social platforms have been developed as a for profit company. Granted, FB has improved some of their underlying technologies, and released them back to the public in the way open source is meant. I do give them credit for that. However, the SDKs and APIs etc are direct work made by the platform. These tools are made specifically for interacting with that platform. They have every right to monetize that work. While some of us (at least I do) believe their method of making that money is super shady/unethical/etc, it is their business model. Other companies like Apache, Redhat, etc also offer us free things to use/play with while monetizing their enterprise/support services. A much more ethical method in my opinion.
- K0SM0S 7y agoYou're totally right. I agree, and wasn't disputing these facts indeed. Just thinking out loud I guess... > Other companies like Apache, Redhat, etc also offer us free things to use/play with while monetizing their enterprise/support services. A much more ethical method in my opinion. Totally, this general business model can get as close as it gets to sustainable open-source. It seems hard to pull off though, lots of dead startups and projects out there, despite a few resounding successes.