4 ms·

I abhor the "This only impacts 1% of our users" line. Putting the obvious "then why do it" aside, it's just coming out and saying "we are okay with screwing ind

I abhor the "This only impacts 1% of our users" line. Putting the obvious "then why do it" aside, it's just coming out and saying "we are okay with screwing individual users over, as long as there's not so many of them that we get in trouble".

squaresmile 5y ago
Yeah, I have been finding these internal justifications kinda odd in a public announcement. As a user, ether I'm affected or I'm not. 99% or 1% doesn't concern me. I don't think I would react differently if the number is 5% or 25%. I agree the implication feels a bit like don't bother complaining since you guys are an insignificant portion of the userbase. Cool, good to know I guess.
treis 5y ago
One of these days anti-trust regulators need to look at these "free until we get market share" plans. This isn't a particular egregious example, but it is pretty classic dumping.
- adtac 5y ago
  >anti-trust This has absolutely nothing to do with antitrust. The word antitrust has lost all meaning.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  The FTC would be the one looking into this type of thing. Bait and switch is something they go after. But it seems that as long as you bait and switch over a long time horizon, it's ok. I'm fine with deciding to take away free stuff. The part that irks me is the lock in. When you create a lot of custom code to work on the free system they offer you, you are left to either pay or scramble to rebuild what you have somewhere else.
  - treis 5y ago
    It's an anti-trust concern too. Current SCOTUS precedent is essentially dumping/predatory pricing doesn't work so there's no harm to the consumer so it's not illegal. If you could show it worked, i.e. a company drove competitors out of business and then maintained artificially high prices then it would be a slam dunk case.
chatmasta 5y ago
The fact the change only impacts 1% of users doesn’t mean much on its own. How much are those users costing GitLab? Agreed it’s a weird point to include in an announcement, especially when 100% of the people affected by the announcement are in the 1% of users.
etchalon 5y ago
It'd be nice if they expressed the cost impacts along side that user count. "This impacts 1% of our users and saves us 10% annually on hosting costs. It's a no-brainer."
jeffybefffy519 5y ago
Maybe that 1% costs an excessive amount to host.
gls2ro 5y ago
This is not a critique of your comment, but I am curious about our ambivalence regarding the following line of thoughts: - It seems to me that we are promoting in IT a lot the idea of taking decisions based on data i.e data-driven companies. - What does it mean to make decisions based on data? It seems to me that it looks exactly like this: we should look at what we want to change, look at the data and decide if the change will hurt/help/support a number of users. Do some math and then the result will be Yes/No for the decision. - Now, of course, we could add "look at the data, but also think about second-order effects, about hidden relations ..." but that looks to me more like a No true Scotsman argument where only companies taking decisions that we like are really doing data-driven. If we want data-driven decisions then why does it feel that the decision to impact only 1% of the users is wrong? (please note: I am not saying this Gitlab decision is a good one. Probably it affects more than 1% of the users. I am mostly discussing the idea of the OP about "impacts 1% of our users")
- activitypea 5y ago
  Can't speak for others, but I am strongly against data-driven decision making, outside of UI/UX stuff.

squaresmile 5y ago

Yeah, I have been finding these internal justifications kinda odd in a public announcement. As a user, ether I'm affected or I'm not. 99% or 1% doesn't concern me. I don't think I would react differently if the number is 5% or 25%. I agree the implication feels a bit like don't bother complaining since you guys are an insignificant portion of the userbase. Cool, good to know I guess.

treis 5y ago

One of these days anti-trust regulators need to look at these "free until we get market share" plans. This isn't a particular egregious example, but it is pretty classic dumping.

adtac 5y ago
>anti-trust This has absolutely nothing to do with antitrust. The word antitrust has lost all meaning.
jjeaff 5y ago
The FTC would be the one looking into this type of thing. Bait and switch is something they go after. But it seems that as long as you bait and switch over a long time horizon, it's ok. I'm fine with deciding to take away free stuff. The part that irks me is the lock in. When you create a lot of custom code to work on the free system they offer you, you are left to either pay or scramble to rebuild what you have somewhere else.
- treis 5y ago
  It's an anti-trust concern too. Current SCOTUS precedent is essentially dumping/predatory pricing doesn't work so there's no harm to the consumer so it's not illegal. If you could show it worked, i.e. a company drove competitors out of business and then maintained artificially high prices then it would be a slam dunk case.

chatmasta 5y ago

The fact the change only impacts 1% of users doesn’t mean much on its own. How much are those users costing GitLab? Agreed it’s a weird point to include in an announcement, especially when 100% of the people affected by the announcement are in the 1% of users.

etchalon 5y ago

It'd be nice if they expressed the cost impacts along side that user count. "This impacts 1% of our users and saves us 10% annually on hosting costs. It's a no-brainer."

jeffybefffy519 5y ago

Maybe that 1% costs an excessive amount to host.

gls2ro 5y ago

This is not a critique of your comment, but I am curious about our ambivalence regarding the following line of thoughts: - It seems to me that we are promoting in IT a lot the idea of taking decisions based on data i.e data-driven companies. - What does it mean to make decisions based on data? It seems to me that it looks exactly like this: we should look at what we want to change, look at the data and decide if the change will hurt/help/support a number of users. Do some math and then the result will be Yes/No for the decision. - Now, of course, we could add "look at the data, but also think about second-order effects, about hidden relations ..." but that looks to me more like a No true Scotsman argument where only companies taking decisions that we like are really doing data-driven. If we want data-driven decisions then why does it feel that the decision to impact only 1% of the users is wrong? (please note: I am not saying this Gitlab decision is a good one. Probably it affects more than 1% of the users. I am mostly discussing the idea of the OP about "impacts 1% of our users")

activitypea 5y ago
Can't speak for others, but I am strongly against data-driven decision making, outside of UI/UX stuff.