56 ms·

I really dislike that this is free by default, and the paid version is done in the style of NPM (free for everything except private packages, custom subdomains,

I really dislike that this is free by default, and the paid version is done in the style of NPM (free for everything except private packages, custom subdomains, support). Bandwidth is not free on a global CDN. All it takes is one guy linking a dozen packages from his insanely popular WordPress theme or a poorly-built site ending up on the front page of Reddit to drive costs through the roof. Even if you managed to build out your own DIY CDN, you'll need big pipes to avoid choking every morning when folks open their browsers. Good caching headers won't save you. The net result is a service that can't pay for itself—because such a small percentage of users require the paid features—leading to the service shutting down (breaking every site linking it), demanding money later (breaking most sites linking it), or getting acquired by a company that might inject unscrupulous code into packages. Charge _something_. Anything.

gitgud 6y ago
It seems the goal is for 'Premium users' to subsidise the costs of 'free users' many popular companies do this including; Github, npm, gmail etc. Hopefully they've calculated the growth cost of their premium tiers and how much they can give away for free... Otherwise, it's great for side projects!!
- hinkley 6y ago
  But that subsidy shows up as higher prices for people who want to switch to a paying account. So the question I think is: is it cheaper for the customer to upgrade to a paid account or switch to another provider that only has paid accounts? There are a lot of Dark Patterns around this. I'm not sure we should be supporting that behavior. Objectively, it's better for me to have a paid account at a place that charges $10 a year to entry level customers.
  - setr 6y ago
    especially for subscription services, I have the feeling that the jump from $0 to $10 /mo is far, far higher than the jump from $10 to $50 /mo, and the difference between $0->$10 $0->$50 is fairly low, in terms of how people approach payments. Ofc, I have nothing legitimate to back this up. But if I'm correct, and that people are more payment-adverse than they cost-conscious, for online subs, then it's generally correct to follow the subsidy-model rather than anything else. Subsidization is anyways far superior to the advert-model -- though it can be abused when taken to the extreme, e.g. gaming whales + gambling mechanics, but in a corp-to-corp setting I'm not seeing to much risk there. The other side of it is that enforces monopolistic structures -- essentially forcing global market share by leveraging your enterprise weight -- which is more concerning to me but seems to be generally inevitable (gov intervention is really the only thing stopping monopolies from existing, because really by all right its a perfectly valid market strategy) I'm assuming I'm correct because companies keep implementing/switching to this model (and this is the best reasoning I can think of), but maybe its just part of a non-intelligent fashion trend (signalling difference from LEGACY software model to MODERN)
    - hinkley 6y ago
      The payment averse bit is some learned helplessness due to a codependent relationship. Some people in the business world see money as a form of control and they like it. It doesn't matter if you want $10 or $5 million. They get to decide if you get it. I don't think open source would have gotten as far as it has if not for this misbehavior. "Hey I'm using this new tool." "Well I'm not going to pay for it [so no]." "Oh that's okay, it doesn't cost anything, seeya." "..." We shouldn't have to submarine things into a company and then say, "we have been getting for free then we have to pay money or you have to explain to all of these stakeholders why we have to take their toys away". It's extortion, and we are debased by having to do it. I don't know that I have a solution, I just think that pretending it isn't happening makes us accessories or at least enablers.
qeternity 6y ago
Bandwidth is not that expensive. Cloud providers have brainwashed people that basic egress should be 10c/gb or more. In reality, volume pricing and sustained use drops that massively. Cloudflare has managed to build a massive business on the back of giving away a lot more bandwidth.
- bastawhiz 6y ago
  Even if it was an order of magnitude less than what AWS charges, it's still not free. I pay $4k/mo to Cloudflare for an amount of bandwidth I can easily see Skypack pulling down, and I'm able to pay for that with a sizable base of paying customers. Even if they charged $1/mo, they'd be infinitely better off than where they are now. Giving away something that's cheap is not a good business model, especially when the thing that's cheap doesn't hit meaningful economies of scale until well after it's not cheap anymore.
- stingraycharles 6y ago
  CloudFlare also lost a lot of money by giving away the bandwidth, but they consider it an important marketing tool. It still is a loss leader to them, at least according to their S-1 last year.
skinkestek 6y ago
Kind of agree. An alternative could be to add limits to the free tiers.

gitgud 6y ago

It seems the goal is for 'Premium users' to subsidise the costs of 'free users' many popular companies do this including; Github, npm, gmail etc. Hopefully they've calculated the growth cost of their premium tiers and how much they can give away for free... Otherwise, it's great for side projects!!

hinkley 6y ago
But that subsidy shows up as higher prices for people who want to switch to a paying account. So the question I think is: is it cheaper for the customer to upgrade to a paid account or switch to another provider that only has paid accounts? There are a lot of Dark Patterns around this. I'm not sure we should be supporting that behavior. Objectively, it's better for me to have a paid account at a place that charges $10 a year to entry level customers.
- setr 6y ago
  especially for subscription services, I have the feeling that the jump from $0 to $10 /mo is far, far higher than the jump from $10 to $50 /mo, and the difference between $0->$10 $0->$50 is fairly low, in terms of how people approach payments. Ofc, I have nothing legitimate to back this up. But if I'm correct, and that people are more payment-adverse than they cost-conscious, for online subs, then it's generally correct to follow the subsidy-model rather than anything else. Subsidization is anyways far superior to the advert-model -- though it can be abused when taken to the extreme, e.g. gaming whales + gambling mechanics, but in a corp-to-corp setting I'm not seeing to much risk there. The other side of it is that enforces monopolistic structures -- essentially forcing global market share by leveraging your enterprise weight -- which is more concerning to me but seems to be generally inevitable (gov intervention is really the only thing stopping monopolies from existing, because really by all right its a perfectly valid market strategy) I'm assuming I'm correct because companies keep implementing/switching to this model (and this is the best reasoning I can think of), but maybe its just part of a non-intelligent fashion trend (signalling difference from LEGACY software model to MODERN)
  - hinkley 6y ago
    The payment averse bit is some learned helplessness due to a codependent relationship. Some people in the business world see money as a form of control and they like it. It doesn't matter if you want $10 or $5 million. They get to decide if you get it. I don't think open source would have gotten as far as it has if not for this misbehavior. "Hey I'm using this new tool." "Well I'm not going to pay for it [so no]." "Oh that's okay, it doesn't cost anything, seeya." "..." We shouldn't have to submarine things into a company and then say, "we have been getting for free then we have to pay money or you have to explain to all of these stakeholders why we have to take their toys away". It's extortion, and we are debased by having to do it. I don't know that I have a solution, I just think that pretending it isn't happening makes us accessories or at least enablers.

qeternity 6y ago

Bandwidth is not that expensive. Cloud providers have brainwashed people that basic egress should be 10c/gb or more. In reality, volume pricing and sustained use drops that massively. Cloudflare has managed to build a massive business on the back of giving away a lot more bandwidth.

bastawhiz 6y ago
Even if it was an order of magnitude less than what AWS charges, it's still not free. I pay $4k/mo to Cloudflare for an amount of bandwidth I can easily see Skypack pulling down, and I'm able to pay for that with a sizable base of paying customers. Even if they charged $1/mo, they'd be infinitely better off than where they are now. Giving away something that's cheap is not a good business model, especially when the thing that's cheap doesn't hit meaningful economies of scale until well after it's not cheap anymore.
stingraycharles 6y ago
CloudFlare also lost a lot of money by giving away the bandwidth, but they consider it an important marketing tool. It still is a loss leader to them, at least according to their S-1 last year.

skinkestek 6y ago

Kind of agree. An alternative could be to add limits to the free tiers.