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It's the bait-and-switch aspect I suspect most are reacting negatively to. Given how many of these 'pivots' we've seen, let's be honest is observing that gener
by blihp 5y ago
It's the bait-and-switch aspect I suspect most are reacting negatively to. Given how many of these 'pivots' we've seen, let's be honest is observing that generally the plan for a sustainable model all along most likely was "don't start charging for it until we're sure we've become a user habit and killed the competition." They knew long ago, if not on day one, that "give it away for free and make it up in volume" wasn't a serious long term plan. On the one hand, I don't blame companies for pulling this because the market continues to go along with it. On the other, I have no sympathy for the backlash they get for doing it.
Choice and competition are good. Companies taking a scorched earth approach with extended "free... for now (because we've got the runway to do it)" business models are bad for the ecosystem.
- raesene9 5y agoTBF if you know the history of Docker, it seems unlikely that this was their plan in the beginning. Docker started back before the container orchestrator wars and the rise of Kubernetes. They couldn't have predicted that or the popularity of their services and tools. They then had the enterprise Docker edition and swarm along with UCP which at one point looked like a reasonable path to monetization. It was only after selling the enterprise software arm to Mirantis, which isn't that long ago really, that it would have been likely that their end game was charging for the Docker desktop product.