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Sounds like a tax for stupidity and laziness, like AWS. This is how I feel about most B2B companies and software. I wonder how a recession and the end of free

Sounds like a tax for stupidity and laziness, like AWS. This is how I feel about most B2B companies and software. I wonder how a recession and the end of free funny money will change that whole sector?

jjice 4y ago
> Sounds like a tax for stupidity and laziness I pay a barber to cut my hair. Sure, I could learn how to cut my own hair, but there's a good chance I'll spend a lot of time and still mess it up. I pay a mechanic to fix my car for serious repair. Sure, I could learn how to replace a transmission, but there's a good chance I'll spend a lot of time and still mess it up. If these (and the endless examples of paying professionals) are a tax for stupidity and laziness, then everyone is lazy and stupid. If you're not a software company, there's a good chance it's worth it to save the time to pay someone to set it up for you. Also, if Joe's Fish Market wants a POS system and needs a server for it and he decides to set it up himself, if he gets it up and running, what are the chances it'll stay up to day and not have a firewall issue? Probably pretty low compared to if a professional did it. Joe wants to focus on selling fish. That's where he's a pro. I don't know anything about fish, but I could set up a server for him. We all have our own skills, and it's often worth while to leverage other people's skills, because they'll do it faster, better, and it will likely end up cheaper after time and security are taken into consideration.
- yobbo 4y ago
  > I pay a barber to cut my hair. Meaningless analogy. Here some other meaningless analogies: Why would anyone ever own a frying pan? Not only do you need to rent a stove, you also need to hire a chef to cook with frying pan, you need a station with chefs that prep ingredients and so on. Just go to a restaurant. You pay a mechanic to fix your car? Why would anyone ever own a car when you can rent a car whenever you need one. You pay a barber to cut your hair? Why not just wear a wig! And so on ...
  - jnovek 4y ago
    I lease a car every four years in part so that I don’t have to deal with the inevitable car repairs that come after that point. For some — but not all — people, that’s a preferable option. For some — but not all — companies, enterprise tech is a preferable option.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      I typically own cars 4-10 years old. I'm currently still happy with a 2008 model that has had exactly one non-maintenance, non-upgrade, cost -- which wouldn't even have prevented using it in any way, I just like the emissions system to be as eco-friendly as it can. "Inevitable repairs after 4 years" is just a delusion, and silly. Might I suggest you be honest with yourself and say you like the new car feel? Maybe even like it as a status symbol? Don't want to think about what tires to buy to replace worn-out ones? I'm the opposite. I like having a scuffed-up car (or in this case, jeep), with dogs climbing all over the seats and sand everywhere from going off road. I'd rather use the thing and have fun on the trip. Even if I drove my jeep off a cliff, called it a total loss, and got nothing back from insurance, I'd lose less money than you lost in 3 years of leasing -- and I've already had the thing longer than that.
      - jnovek 4y ago
        “Might I suggest you be honest with yourself and say you like the new car feel? Maybe even like it as a status symbol? Don't want to think about what tires to buy to replace worn-out ones?” Dead wrong. I lease the cheapest car that is practical for my situation. I consider cars completely utilitarian tools. I get no joy from them, I hate driving and take public transit whenever I can. I had very little money until I was in my late 20s when my career prospects finally took off. Cheap cars that failed frequently were a constant source of anxiety because I couldn’t get far enough ahead to maintain savings. When my career improved and I could afford small luxuries, I spent the money on leasing because I wanted to avoid the anxiety of cars breaking down. It was a gift to myself to lower my stress level. EDIT: also, in northern Minnesota where the winters are hard and everything is covered in salt, car trouble DOES start after 4 years. Sometimes before.
lp0_on_fire 4y ago
Would you consider a chef who buys produce from the market as opposed to buying a farm and growing it on their own "stupid and lazy"?
- JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
  It’s more like being a chef and paying another company to cut up your ingredients for you and cook them. Companies these days just want to specialize in making cool menu designs and marketing and waiting on the three star Michelin review to roll in somehow.
  - teh64 4y ago
    That is not the same analogy, because a chef's job is to make food, but say a trucking companies job is not to create GPS and mapping software, or some HR tool which tracks sick days etc... The difference is what the core competency of the company is.
  - simiones 4y ago
    > It’s more like being a chef and paying another company to cut up your ingredients for you and cook them. That would be like a Hypervisor company paying VMWare to re-distribute ESXi or something. But a farm company buying VMWare ESXi to run its IT infra instead of using, say, CentOS is exactly like a chef sourcing ingredients instead of growing them herself.
xbar 4y ago
Small companies will fail and vanish. Large companies will layoff employees and reinvest in technology to leverage the ones that remain. B2B software companies would do well to retain existing developers and grow their teams if possible to meet scaling demand and cover feature gaps in existing product lines as part of normal business. One part of the dynamic, simplified: big companies can show quickest cost savings by laying off employees; this satisfies anxious shareholders during the bumpy times by suggesting that management is wiling to make "hard decisions." Such companies cannot quickly re-tool their technology stacks nor renegotiate 3-year software contracts. B2B companies tend to do very well as long as they are not solely focused on their startup/growth/pre-IPO customers, who get hit hard. Here are some arguments for post-downturn tech growth: 1981 and the use of the PC + Lotus/WordPerfect/BASIC for efficient local compute 1990 and the surge of the LAN to replace centralized IT 2001 and the swell of SaaS 2008 and the swell of cloud 2022 and the .....
rootusrootus 4y ago
If you're right, then this looks like a great opportunity to outcompete these dumb, lazy companies that don't know how to run a business.

jjice 4y ago

> Sounds like a tax for stupidity and laziness I pay a barber to cut my hair. Sure, I could learn how to cut my own hair, but there's a good chance I'll spend a lot of time and still mess it up. I pay a mechanic to fix my car for serious repair. Sure, I could learn how to replace a transmission, but there's a good chance I'll spend a lot of time and still mess it up. If these (and the endless examples of paying professionals) are a tax for stupidity and laziness, then everyone is lazy and stupid. If you're not a software company, there's a good chance it's worth it to save the time to pay someone to set it up for you. Also, if Joe's Fish Market wants a POS system and needs a server for it and he decides to set it up himself, if he gets it up and running, what are the chances it'll stay up to day and not have a firewall issue? Probably pretty low compared to if a professional did it. Joe wants to focus on selling fish. That's where he's a pro. I don't know anything about fish, but I could set up a server for him. We all have our own skills, and it's often worth while to leverage other people's skills, because they'll do it faster, better, and it will likely end up cheaper after time and security are taken into consideration.

yobbo 4y ago
> I pay a barber to cut my hair. Meaningless analogy. Here some other meaningless analogies: Why would anyone ever own a frying pan? Not only do you need to rent a stove, you also need to hire a chef to cook with frying pan, you need a station with chefs that prep ingredients and so on. Just go to a restaurant. You pay a mechanic to fix your car? Why would anyone ever own a car when you can rent a car whenever you need one. You pay a barber to cut your hair? Why not just wear a wig! And so on ...
- jnovek 4y ago
  I lease a car every four years in part so that I don’t have to deal with the inevitable car repairs that come after that point. For some — but not all — people, that’s a preferable option. For some — but not all — companies, enterprise tech is a preferable option.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    I typically own cars 4-10 years old. I'm currently still happy with a 2008 model that has had exactly one non-maintenance, non-upgrade, cost -- which wouldn't even have prevented using it in any way, I just like the emissions system to be as eco-friendly as it can. "Inevitable repairs after 4 years" is just a delusion, and silly. Might I suggest you be honest with yourself and say you like the new car feel? Maybe even like it as a status symbol? Don't want to think about what tires to buy to replace worn-out ones? I'm the opposite. I like having a scuffed-up car (or in this case, jeep), with dogs climbing all over the seats and sand everywhere from going off road. I'd rather use the thing and have fun on the trip. Even if I drove my jeep off a cliff, called it a total loss, and got nothing back from insurance, I'd lose less money than you lost in 3 years of leasing -- and I've already had the thing longer than that.
    - jnovek 4y ago
      “Might I suggest you be honest with yourself and say you like the new car feel? Maybe even like it as a status symbol? Don't want to think about what tires to buy to replace worn-out ones?” Dead wrong. I lease the cheapest car that is practical for my situation. I consider cars completely utilitarian tools. I get no joy from them, I hate driving and take public transit whenever I can. I had very little money until I was in my late 20s when my career prospects finally took off. Cheap cars that failed frequently were a constant source of anxiety because I couldn’t get far enough ahead to maintain savings. When my career improved and I could afford small luxuries, I spent the money on leasing because I wanted to avoid the anxiety of cars breaking down. It was a gift to myself to lower my stress level. EDIT: also, in northern Minnesota where the winters are hard and everything is covered in salt, car trouble DOES start after 4 years. Sometimes before.

lp0_on_fire 4y ago

Would you consider a chef who buys produce from the market as opposed to buying a farm and growing it on their own "stupid and lazy"?

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
It’s more like being a chef and paying another company to cut up your ingredients for you and cook them. Companies these days just want to specialize in making cool menu designs and marketing and waiting on the three star Michelin review to roll in somehow.
- teh64 4y ago
  That is not the same analogy, because a chef's job is to make food, but say a trucking companies job is not to create GPS and mapping software, or some HR tool which tracks sick days etc... The difference is what the core competency of the company is.
- simiones 4y ago
  > It’s more like being a chef and paying another company to cut up your ingredients for you and cook them. That would be like a Hypervisor company paying VMWare to re-distribute ESXi or something. But a farm company buying VMWare ESXi to run its IT infra instead of using, say, CentOS is exactly like a chef sourcing ingredients instead of growing them herself.

xbar 4y ago

Small companies will fail and vanish. Large companies will layoff employees and reinvest in technology to leverage the ones that remain. B2B software companies would do well to retain existing developers and grow their teams if possible to meet scaling demand and cover feature gaps in existing product lines as part of normal business. One part of the dynamic, simplified: big companies can show quickest cost savings by laying off employees; this satisfies anxious shareholders during the bumpy times by suggesting that management is wiling to make "hard decisions." Such companies cannot quickly re-tool their technology stacks nor renegotiate 3-year software contracts. B2B companies tend to do very well as long as they are not solely focused on their startup/growth/pre-IPO customers, who get hit hard. Here are some arguments for post-downturn tech growth: 1981 and the use of the PC + Lotus/WordPerfect/BASIC for efficient local compute 1990 and the surge of the LAN to replace centralized IT 2001 and the swell of SaaS 2008 and the swell of cloud 2022 and the .....

rootusrootus 4y ago

If you're right, then this looks like a great opportunity to outcompete these dumb, lazy companies that don't know how to run a business.