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I doubt it. There is no need for them to, they aren't hurting or struggling. Running businesses with "lets offer more for free" and "ohh crap, they offer more

I doubt it. There is no need for them to, they aren't hurting or struggling. Running businesses with "lets offer more for free" and "ohh crap, they offer more for free, lets lower our price" is a race to the bottom. It is actually moves like these that make me question Bitbucket more. How viable is the service long term? Do I want to trust all my own code to them?

ergo14 15y ago
You sound like an apple customer, you get more for same price and consider this a bad thing... Pigs indeed fly. It doesn't cost them a lot more in infrastructure to provide alternate dvcs - so your point seems to be completly invalid. More and more I'm starting to think that git is some kind of religion. We benefit from competition between those 2 platforms and in the end this is what should count the most for us - customers.
- skrebbel 15y ago
  It's amazing that your comment got thumbed down, not up. All points seem perfecly valid, so it really must be the "Apple customer" reference that killed it. Sad.
  - SnowLprd 15y ago
    What's sad is the absurd claim that Apple customers believe that getting more for the same price is a bad thing. As for the next point, whether providing alternative DVCS access leads to greater fixed infrastructure costs or not, that seems like a completely orthogonal point to the "race to the bottom" topic that the OP raised. If all players involved reduce their prices (and therefore top-line revenue) to near zero, it doesn't matter how low the infrastructure costs are -- everyone is still broke in that scenario. So no, not all points here seem valid. Far from it: by my count, it looks like 0 for 2 so far. One point, however, rings true: competition is good for we end-users, and it's certainly exciting that Bitbucket now offers both hg and git access.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - ergo14 15y ago
      Why would you claim that someone reduced their prices and revenue to zero? How does providing additional functionality relate to price reduction? I'm really surprised by this comment - do you have any data to base this assumption? To me it's opening to customers with different demands.
- krobertson 15y ago
  Yes, I am an Apple customer, though really don't think that has anything to do with it. My opinion stems from running my own SaaS applications, seen the business downsides of all the free stuff, and now don't focus very much on the free aspect. I prefer trial. I also recognize that me paying for a service I like is a healthy way to help that service stay around, because that is how I view it when my customers are paying me.
bitsweet 15y ago
Bitbucket is funded by Atlassian - their other products have a huge install base at enterprises across the world. Atlassian could probably run Bitbucket at a loss as marketing if they wanted to
- akx 15y ago
  And if my hunch is right, that's what they do right now.
  - adambyrtek 15y ago
    Why? They still charge per user, and multi-user private account is what companies look for. Really, I don't believe that GitHub relies on profit from personal side projects. It's also companies they are after.
cookiecaper 15y ago
Since Bitbucket is based on DVCSes, you won't actually lose any of your code even if they do go under, so it's probably a better question if you trust them with your issue tracking than with your code.
- krobertson 15y ago
  Sure, its DVCS, but if they go away, where will you host it now? You are choosing to use Bitbucket for specific reasons. If they shut down because Atlassian is burning money and wants to trim the bottom line, then you now need to find something else to fill those specific needs again. You don't lose any code, but you now need to figure something else out. And if you were relying on "free unlimited private repositories" you might not find that on another and now have to pay for something else. Personally, I use GitHub daily for my job, but my private code isn't with GitHub.
  - nknight 15y ago
    > where will you host it now? On any available machine with some free space and an SSH daemon? You talk about "figuring something else out" like it's some sort of big project. I don't understand that at all. There's no really effective lock-in here, users can take their repos and go anywhere or nowhere with negligible effort. They could even easily maintain a full copy of their repos on some backup machine at all times while using bitbucket or github.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
SafdarIqbal 15y ago
They one thing they could to make it a lot better, is to allow a few (5-8 maybe?) private zero-collaborator repos in the free plan. And they can always increase the number of repos in each plan. I understand this won't make them as competitive on pricing, but the better user experience they offer has to be reflected in the cost.

ergo14 15y ago

You sound like an apple customer, you get more for same price and consider this a bad thing... Pigs indeed fly. It doesn't cost them a lot more in infrastructure to provide alternate dvcs - so your point seems to be completly invalid. More and more I'm starting to think that git is some kind of religion. We benefit from competition between those 2 platforms and in the end this is what should count the most for us - customers.

skrebbel 15y ago
It's amazing that your comment got thumbed down, not up. All points seem perfecly valid, so it really must be the "Apple customer" reference that killed it. Sad.
- SnowLprd 15y ago
  What's sad is the absurd claim that Apple customers believe that getting more for the same price is a bad thing. As for the next point, whether providing alternative DVCS access leads to greater fixed infrastructure costs or not, that seems like a completely orthogonal point to the "race to the bottom" topic that the OP raised. If all players involved reduce their prices (and therefore top-line revenue) to near zero, it doesn't matter how low the infrastructure costs are -- everyone is still broke in that scenario. So no, not all points here seem valid. Far from it: by my count, it looks like 0 for 2 so far. One point, however, rings true: competition is good for we end-users, and it's certainly exciting that Bitbucket now offers both hg and git access.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ergo14 15y ago
    Why would you claim that someone reduced their prices and revenue to zero? How does providing additional functionality relate to price reduction? I'm really surprised by this comment - do you have any data to base this assumption? To me it's opening to customers with different demands.
krobertson 15y ago
Yes, I am an Apple customer, though really don't think that has anything to do with it. My opinion stems from running my own SaaS applications, seen the business downsides of all the free stuff, and now don't focus very much on the free aspect. I prefer trial. I also recognize that me paying for a service I like is a healthy way to help that service stay around, because that is how I view it when my customers are paying me.

bitsweet 15y ago

Bitbucket is funded by Atlassian - their other products have a huge install base at enterprises across the world. Atlassian could probably run Bitbucket at a loss as marketing if they wanted to

akx 15y ago
And if my hunch is right, that's what they do right now.
- adambyrtek 15y ago
  Why? They still charge per user, and multi-user private account is what companies look for. Really, I don't believe that GitHub relies on profit from personal side projects. It's also companies they are after.

cookiecaper 15y ago

Since Bitbucket is based on DVCSes, you won't actually lose any of your code even if they do go under, so it's probably a better question if you trust them with your issue tracking than with your code.

krobertson 15y ago
Sure, its DVCS, but if they go away, where will you host it now? You are choosing to use Bitbucket for specific reasons. If they shut down because Atlassian is burning money and wants to trim the bottom line, then you now need to find something else to fill those specific needs again. You don't lose any code, but you now need to figure something else out. And if you were relying on "free unlimited private repositories" you might not find that on another and now have to pay for something else. Personally, I use GitHub daily for my job, but my private code isn't with GitHub.
- nknight 15y ago
  > where will you host it now? On any available machine with some free space and an SSH daemon? You talk about "figuring something else out" like it's some sort of big project. I don't understand that at all. There's no really effective lock-in here, users can take their repos and go anywhere or nowhere with negligible effort. They could even easily maintain a full copy of their repos on some backup machine at all times while using bitbucket or github.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

SafdarIqbal 15y ago

They one thing they could to make it a lot better, is to allow a few (5-8 maybe?) private zero-collaborator repos in the free plan. And they can always increase the number of repos in each plan. I understand this won't make them as competitive on pricing, but the better user experience they offer has to be reflected in the cost.