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This is also the case in the startup world. As we saw recently, any tool that begins to take off gets cloned incredibly quickly (Airtable, Roam...). Given the a

by pyb 5y ago

This is also the case in the startup world. As we saw recently, any tool that begins to take off gets cloned incredibly quickly (Airtable, Roam...). Given the apparent shortage, it goes to show that ideas actually matter.

ushakov 5y ago
devils advocate here to be honest, expensive, proprietary tools like Airtable, Notion, Retool deserve to be copied why would you pour significant resources into something that one day can and probably will disappear, cancelled or priced out?
- JonAtkinson 5y ago
  Because in the current environment it's easy to leverage VC money to stay just-ahead in the user-acquisition race, while the early employees extract very nice salaries and build their networks -- which they can use to find their next role when the gravy train ends. It really doesn't matter a bit if the product survives in the marketplace or not. It just needs to 'succeed' in the short term.
  - ushakov 5y ago
    all these companies are going to die as soon as they run out of VC-money or can't sustain the growth to get new money VC-startups are glorified MLMs for early employees and investors
    - _zllx 5y ago
      Those are all okay because they don't use an openly replicated linked list with byzantine fault tolerance. The ones using an openly replicated linked list with byzantine fault tolerance are the only ones that should be subject to scrutiny and public fits of outrage. If they are using PostgreSQL on AWS, there is no issue.
- ehnto 5y ago
  I think when criticizing paid software, and paid SaaS, it's a mistake to think their alternative is logically open-source software. It's actually ad-driven software, because a profitable paid service has to provide much more to you than just the code like open-source does, and that costs money. I relish tools that just let me pay for them and cut out the middle-man. The idea that all software should be free has contributed to the hyper commercialized, invasive, ad-funded internet we have now.

by pyb 5y ago

ushakov 5y ago

devils advocate here to be honest, expensive, proprietary tools like Airtable, Notion, Retool deserve to be copied why would you pour significant resources into something that one day can and probably will disappear, cancelled or priced out?

JonAtkinson 5y ago
Because in the current environment it's easy to leverage VC money to stay just-ahead in the user-acquisition race, while the early employees extract very nice salaries and build their networks -- which they can use to find their next role when the gravy train ends. It really doesn't matter a bit if the product survives in the marketplace or not. It just needs to 'succeed' in the short term.
- ushakov 5y ago
  all these companies are going to die as soon as they run out of VC-money or can't sustain the growth to get new money VC-startups are glorified MLMs for early employees and investors
  - _zllx 5y ago
    Those are all okay because they don't use an openly replicated linked list with byzantine fault tolerance. The ones using an openly replicated linked list with byzantine fault tolerance are the only ones that should be subject to scrutiny and public fits of outrage. If they are using PostgreSQL on AWS, there is no issue.
ehnto 5y ago
I think when criticizing paid software, and paid SaaS, it's a mistake to think their alternative is logically open-source software. It's actually ad-driven software, because a profitable paid service has to provide much more to you than just the code like open-source does, and that costs money. I relish tools that just let me pay for them and cut out the middle-man. The idea that all software should be free has contributed to the hyper commercialized, invasive, ad-funded internet we have now.