5 ms·

Was going to try their Free account, until I signed up and the discovered the big black "Free" had a tiny light grey "+ Machine Utilization Charges" beneath it.

Was going to try their Free account, until I signed up and the discovered the big black "Free" had a tiny light grey "+ Machine Utilization Charges" beneath it. Everything is "Free + Charges".

_jal 7y ago
Their next hire should offer to work for free + Human Utilization Charges.
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
I have a pet theory that some of the managers that set up the "free - just pay shipping and handling" type businesses found a new home in e-commerce. I obviously dislike it.
hnCensorFreedum 7y ago
I'm waiting for my honest business practices to pay off. No cookies, no ads, donations only. It hasn't paid off aside from about 1k per year in revenue and lots of thank you emails.
- thawaway1837 7y ago
  There’s nothing dishonest about just straight up charging, as long as you’re honest about what you’re charging.
  - hnCensorFreedum 7y ago
    I agree. I tried selling books, but it felt like the articles were just marketing funnels to the books. Still, I didn't do real copywriting. After a while I changed to donations Because the idea was to help people. And my day job pays 6 figs.
    - third_I 7y ago
      We need more people like you in this world. Please breed if you can ;-) Hum, I mean, transmit who you are to other, infect them with greatness, however you can (books is a great idea, teaching and mentoring as well). FWIW I think there's an ethical way to profit, but we have to be willing to wait for the value we created to actually materialize in the real world. A not-so-rare case, I think, is people donating large amounts to their mentors, once they "get there", once they're established and earning enough (likely 2-5 years after the mentorship or transmission took place; sometimes way more). You certainly can't live from those returns. Some of them might be fabulous though, if what you transmitted was really life-changing. I guess. Never been on that side of things (gave, did not receive) but I'm thinking putting out the value is the mission, and anything else is a secondary concern (just keep that day job to pay the bills). Have a great one.
- purerandomness 7y ago
  Charge, and double the money you charge. But don't be sneaky about it. Say what you charge, and then charge exactly what you said you'd charge.
- thanksforfish 7y ago
  We need a directory of sites like that.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
  No cookies, no ads, source code always available, pay for a prebuilt version, user names price ... in excess of $100k/year (after 20 years :) ... ardour.org
  - michaelgrafl 7y ago
    I'd love to see a graph of that income over those 20 years! Also, do you get any license payments from Harrison Consoles? And if yes, are those included in the 100k per year?
    - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
      There is a small "back payment" from Harrison, but it is not included in the cited numbers. I work closely with Harrison and they have worked very hard to not make Mixbus a "fork" of Ardour. Note that there was essentially zero income for the first 8 years, and then a slow, steady rise once I needed to make a living again and instituted the Radiohead-inspired "pay tunnel".
  - z3t4 7y ago
    Thinking about going open source but too afraid of hostile forks. How do you prevent people from stealing the business?
    - NullPrefix 7y ago
      By hostile you mean stolen GPL and included into proprietary tech? Or another, competing GPL product?
      - z3t4 7y ago
        Lets say some of the contributors want a piece of the cake, they make their own website, SEO, and actively tell everyone that their fork is better. The GPL license give you better protection then say MIT in this regard though.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
pyr0hu 7y ago
I don't understand your problem, the Paperspace account is free. You have to pay for the machine you use.
- ethbro 7y ago
  What does a Paperspace account get me without a machine?
  - serf 7y ago
    it looks like it runs jupyter notebooks on a VM of modest resources. there does not appear to be any free rdp/streaming services, but the jupyter playback seems to function. agreed that the pricing methods are somewhat sneaky -- email harvesting with sleight of tongue.
  - lelector 7y ago
    A free GPU on Gradient.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  If you can’t use something without paying someone, is it really free?
  - jsilence 7y ago
    Free of value it is.
    - stpedgwdgfhgdd 7y ago
      You mean, without value it is
icoder 7y ago
When I opened the pricing page I was 'afraid' the hourly prices would come with the caveat of a monthly subscription (or separate fee). Seeing Free + Charges immediately answered that for me. But yeah, I also see your point.
geocrasher 7y ago
Yeah, I signed up for free but it wouldn't even let me create a machine. If they're going to expect to sell it, then at least make it possible to put together a machine and then charge to launch it. So far all I know now is tha they have 3 DC's to choose from. The rest, no idea. Can't get that far.
cscurmudgeon 7y ago
https://www.paperspace.com/pricing https://www.paperspace.com/pricing Dark UI pattern. More annoyingly, they don't see what those charges are.
lelector 7y ago
They have free GPUs, and the account is free. Doing fast.ai currently on a free GPU. The extra charges are if you want to upgrade, like needing more storage.

Was going to try their Free account, until I signed up and the discovered the big black "Free" had a tiny light grey "+ Machine Utilization Charges" beneath it. Everything is "Free + Charges".

_jal 7y ago

Their next hire should offer to work for free + Human Utilization Charges.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

I have a pet theory that some of the managers that set up the "free - just pay shipping and handling" type businesses found a new home in e-commerce. I obviously dislike it.

hnCensorFreedum 7y ago

I'm waiting for my honest business practices to pay off. No cookies, no ads, donations only. It hasn't paid off aside from about 1k per year in revenue and lots of thank you emails.

thawaway1837 7y ago
There’s nothing dishonest about just straight up charging, as long as you’re honest about what you’re charging.
- hnCensorFreedum 7y ago
  I agree. I tried selling books, but it felt like the articles were just marketing funnels to the books. Still, I didn't do real copywriting. After a while I changed to donations Because the idea was to help people. And my day job pays 6 figs.
  - third_I 7y ago
    We need more people like you in this world. Please breed if you can ;-) Hum, I mean, transmit who you are to other, infect them with greatness, however you can (books is a great idea, teaching and mentoring as well). FWIW I think there's an ethical way to profit, but we have to be willing to wait for the value we created to actually materialize in the real world. A not-so-rare case, I think, is people donating large amounts to their mentors, once they "get there", once they're established and earning enough (likely 2-5 years after the mentorship or transmission took place; sometimes way more). You certainly can't live from those returns. Some of them might be fabulous though, if what you transmitted was really life-changing. I guess. Never been on that side of things (gave, did not receive) but I'm thinking putting out the value is the mission, and anything else is a secondary concern (just keep that day job to pay the bills). Have a great one.
purerandomness 7y ago
Charge, and double the money you charge. But don't be sneaky about it. Say what you charge, and then charge exactly what you said you'd charge.
thanksforfish 7y ago
We need a directory of sites like that.
PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
No cookies, no ads, source code always available, pay for a prebuilt version, user names price ... in excess of $100k/year (after 20 years :) ... ardour.org
- michaelgrafl 7y ago
  I'd love to see a graph of that income over those 20 years! Also, do you get any license payments from Harrison Consoles? And if yes, are those included in the 100k per year?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
    There is a small "back payment" from Harrison, but it is not included in the cited numbers. I work closely with Harrison and they have worked very hard to not make Mixbus a "fork" of Ardour. Note that there was essentially zero income for the first 8 years, and then a slow, steady rise once I needed to make a living again and instituted the Radiohead-inspired "pay tunnel".
- z3t4 7y ago
  Thinking about going open source but too afraid of hostile forks. How do you prevent people from stealing the business?
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    By hostile you mean stolen GPL and included into proprietary tech? Or another, competing GPL product?
    - z3t4 7y ago
      Lets say some of the contributors want a piece of the cake, they make their own website, SEO, and actively tell everyone that their fork is better. The GPL license give you better protection then say MIT in this regard though.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago

pyr0hu 7y ago

I don't understand your problem, the Paperspace account is free. You have to pay for the machine you use.

ethbro 7y ago
What does a Paperspace account get me without a machine?
- serf 7y ago
  it looks like it runs jupyter notebooks on a VM of modest resources. there does not appear to be any free rdp/streaming services, but the jupyter playback seems to function. agreed that the pricing methods are somewhat sneaky -- email harvesting with sleight of tongue.
- lelector 7y ago
  A free GPU on Gradient.
chrisseaton 7y ago
If you can’t use something without paying someone, is it really free?
- jsilence 7y ago
  Free of value it is.
  - stpedgwdgfhgdd 7y ago
    You mean, without value it is

icoder 7y ago

When I opened the pricing page I was 'afraid' the hourly prices would come with the caveat of a monthly subscription (or separate fee). Seeing Free + Charges immediately answered that for me. But yeah, I also see your point.

geocrasher 7y ago

Yeah, I signed up for free but it wouldn't even let me create a machine. If they're going to expect to sell it, then at least make it possible to put together a machine and then charge to launch it. So far all I know now is tha they have 3 DC's to choose from. The rest, no idea. Can't get that far.

cscurmudgeon 7y ago

https://www.paperspace.com/pricing https://www.paperspace.com/pricing Dark UI pattern. More annoyingly, they don't see what those charges are.

lelector 7y ago

They have free GPUs, and the account is free. Doing fast.ai currently on a free GPU. The extra charges are if you want to upgrade, like needing more storage.