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Yeah yeah, everyone is entitled and we should think of those brave corporations who need to make money. Seriously? Look, when you give something away for free

Yeah yeah, everyone is entitled and we should think of those brave corporations who need to make money. Seriously? Look, when you give something away for free, you’re either a charity or you’re marketing your non-free tier products and using your large user base to drive premium users. If a company has committed too much to their free tier and it is not sustainably driving premium users, I have little sympathy for them. You did a marketing thing. It didn’t work. Sucks to be you. You are still not getting my business. I do not feel sorry for you when people lash you on Twitter and promise to leave. There’s no reason to feel sorry for companys in this situation; it is a situation of their own engineering. If you don’t like the product, don’t use it. If enough people don’t use it, the conversion funnel will dry up and the company will change tunes (again). The only thing to take note of here is, yes: if you’re not paying for it, you are the product. Feel free to grumble about it and call out these companies, but don’t be surprised about it. > The common thread here: Lots of users expect to get things for free, forever, from for-profit companies that don’t answer to them. Those users contribute almost nothing1 to the bottom line for the for-profit companies, and actively drive up costs for them. Please, spare me. Those users are part of the conversion funnel to paid tier users. Gitlab would not exist without them. If they piss them all off and they leave, it will contribute, I’d wager, significantly the total evaporation of their bottom line.

yunohn 4y ago
> those brave corporations who need to make money Have you considered that (and the article mentions this) the employees of said corporations, people like you and I, also want to be paid for their labor?
- mafriese 4y ago
  You guys are getting paid?
cesaref 4y ago
I agree. It's a question of marketing, and if the company thinks that it can attract people with a free offer and expect to convert them to paying customers via non-free add ons, then that's their call. If it turns out they've massively over-estimated the value of their add-ons, and they don't get the conversions they have justified the free offer with, then that's again their mistake. I think we also have to discuss the elephant in the room, that these businesses are layered on top of free software, so they are effectively reselling (and attempting to profit from) something that is free, so it's unsurprising that people's expectations when considering using open source software is that they don't need to pay for it.
armchairhacker 4y ago
No I disagree, sorry but this is the exact entitled attitude the article is talking about. Companies need to make money. Not billions of dollars in profits like Google, Amazon, Tesla, etc. But they need to at least make money to keep their services up, and then pay their employees decent wages. Otherwise they literally go bankrupt. Software is unique in that it basically costs $0 to distribute infinity copies. Sure you may need to periodically update and host your software, but you don't really need to do that and it usually basically costs $0 to update and host anyways. As a result, most software is free! We have entire operating systems, IDEs, professional-grade tools (e.g. Blender), game engines all for free, because they can be maintained on low budgets and people's spare time. And this is how it should be, software should be free. But this leads lots of developers to expect that everything should be free, when this is flat-out impossible. You can't expect your food, heating, clothes, etc. to be free because they cost physical resources to produce. You can't expect Google to sell laptops for free. Similarly, you can't expect hosting providers to sell storage for free, because it actually does cost resources to run those servers. GitLab has to pay for more hard drives, maintenance, electricity, rent, etc. as more people use their service, and as people use more of their services. Blender doesn't really have to pay more whether 1,000 or 1,000,000 people use it, GitLab does. Linux doesn't really have to pay every month to keep their kernel online, GitLab does. And yeah, companies like GitLab have paid tiers. The issue is that almost nobody uses them, even when they really should. People love to buy "free" stuff, even if something costs $1 you will have far less people buy it. Hence, why we have this entire culture of companies "buying" you via ads and tracking. They do it because consumers encourage ads and tracking in their spending habits, And yeah, companies do have marketing. Another thing software developers don't like to accept is that companies need to market, you can have the best product but without marketing you will sell it to noone. Marketing doesn't mean spammy advertisements and aggressive tracking, there are good ways to advertise your product (like posting an in-depth review to HN with benefits and drawbacks). And marketing absolutely doesn't count as "payment". That attitude is like those influencers asking for services in exchange for "you'll be paid in reputation and experience"! You're absolutely right that nobody needs to use GitLab, and if nobody uses it GitLab will shut down. If all developers team up and decide that they won't use GitLab unless they offer everything free, then they will shut down. Do you want that to happen? Boycotts are good when you're boycotting something like Battlefront 2 for ridiculous micro-transactions, where EA actually has the resources to scale back (and if they don't, it is they're fault, because they're charging $60 for the base game), and a competitor can form and take over. But if you boycott companies with reasonable policies for making anything paid whatsoever, you're going to end up with 0 hosting providers, no competitor is going to appear, because they simply can't exist without going broke.
michaelt 4y ago
> we should think of those brave corporations who need to make money Gitlab are a corporation, sure - but they're also software developers. We-the-software-industry have long had something of a contradiction: Everybody wants to make a 6-figure salary developing software - but nobody wants to pay for a library or a database or a compiler or a linter or an OS or an IDE or a debugger or a code signing certificate, even if it's only $100/year. If you're launching a new database, it's not enough to give the binaries away for free - developers want the full source code too, and an unlimited commercial use license. And of course, nobody will want to commit their data to it if you imply there won't be 10+ years of free updates and bugfixes. You're going to ask for donations? You'd better not do it too aggressively. Except for a tiny handful of megacorporations like Amazon, and one or two products like Jetbrains IDEs, nobody refuses to pay developers quite like other developers.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Most products that are fun to build are free software because some developers built it as a hobby. But all the products that aren't fun to build aren't free, and there is where all the well paid jobs are and those wont go away since nobody wants to work on that shit for free, this is just simple supply and demand.
  - MaxBarraclough 4y ago
    This isn't accurate. For instance, most contributions to the Linux kernel are written by paid professionals.
    - Jensson 4y ago
      But if the linux kernel became paid you would quickly see free alternatives spring up everywhere. The paid contributors to the kernel are corporate developers who wants to put their corporate stuff into the kernel, or need to change something to fix it for their corporation, they don't do it for charity.
      - 4y ago
HidyBush 4y ago
Curious how somehow if ten developers work together they are a nice community that needs to be supported, but the moment they sign a few documents and become a company they immeditely become a soulless entity whose exploitation, ridicule and abuse is morally justifiable.
- zach_garwood 4y ago
  Because those documents you glossed over created a legally distinct entity precisely to take the liability away from those who signed. If they didn't want this soulless entity to exist, they shouldn't have created it.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  I mean yeah the difference is that one's for profit and one isn't. That's the tipping point for just about anything. Do something really well for fun? Just a cool admirable hobby. The second you start to do it for money it becomes a job and people will judge you in a completely different light. As usual money ruins everything.
  - HidyBush 4y ago
    >we are offering this for free as a community. no guarantees >we are offering this for free as a company. no guarantees if you think one's criticizable and the other one isn't I don't know what to tell you
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      A community has no inherent incentive to make money. A few guys on some discord working on public open source code nobody has legal rights to sell, all just because they like to do it? What's there to criticize? The sole point of a corporate entity is to make money. That's the whole point. There's no reason to assume otherwise unless it's a clear non-profit organization. People don't make a company out of the goodness of their heart. Hell, they wouldn't even open one if they didn't have to do it to pay taxes. Speaking from experience here.
troyvit 4y ago
Wow I haven't seriously considered the merits of Atlas Shrugged for 35 years but this comment makes me wish GitLab et. all would just pull up stakes, move to the mountains, and see how all the people who expect "free for life" SaaS get on doing stuff themselves. GitLab is an 8 year old underdog that's trying to push the limits of software development support and they made a change that affects "fewer than 2% of Free tier users within 0.3% of namespaces."[1] Maybe they don't know wtf they're doing but who does in this space? It's relatively new, competition is frantic, and companies are trying things. Maybe they always were planning on doing this, but maybe there were unintended consequences to offering this wide open free tier and they need to correct to stay solvent. Whatever the reason you're absolutely right: If you don't like the product, don't use it. That 2% of the freeriders weren't going to convert anyway so losing them (and a few of their cheerleaders) from the funnel won't hurt them at all, because in the end they supply excellent value to the other 98% of their base. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/03/24/efficient-free-tier/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/03/24/efficient-free-tier...

yunohn 4y ago

> those brave corporations who need to make money Have you considered that (and the article mentions this) the employees of said corporations, people like you and I, also want to be paid for their labor?

mafriese 4y ago
You guys are getting paid?

cesaref 4y ago

I agree. It's a question of marketing, and if the company thinks that it can attract people with a free offer and expect to convert them to paying customers via non-free add ons, then that's their call. If it turns out they've massively over-estimated the value of their add-ons, and they don't get the conversions they have justified the free offer with, then that's again their mistake. I think we also have to discuss the elephant in the room, that these businesses are layered on top of free software, so they are effectively reselling (and attempting to profit from) something that is free, so it's unsurprising that people's expectations when considering using open source software is that they don't need to pay for it.

armchairhacker 4y ago

No I disagree, sorry but this is the exact entitled attitude the article is talking about. Companies need to make money. Not billions of dollars in profits like Google, Amazon, Tesla, etc. But they need to at least make money to keep their services up, and then pay their employees decent wages. Otherwise they literally go bankrupt. Software is unique in that it basically costs $0 to distribute infinity copies. Sure you may need to periodically update and host your software, but you don't really need to do that and it usually basically costs $0 to update and host anyways. As a result, most software is free! We have entire operating systems, IDEs, professional-grade tools (e.g. Blender), game engines all for free, because they can be maintained on low budgets and people's spare time. And this is how it should be, software should be free. But this leads lots of developers to expect that everything should be free, when this is flat-out impossible. You can't expect your food, heating, clothes, etc. to be free because they cost physical resources to produce. You can't expect Google to sell laptops for free. Similarly, you can't expect hosting providers to sell storage for free, because it actually does cost resources to run those servers. GitLab has to pay for more hard drives, maintenance, electricity, rent, etc. as more people use their service, and as people use more of their services. Blender doesn't really have to pay more whether 1,000 or 1,000,000 people use it, GitLab does. Linux doesn't really have to pay every month to keep their kernel online, GitLab does. And yeah, companies like GitLab have paid tiers. The issue is that almost nobody uses them, even when they really should. People love to buy "free" stuff, even if something costs $1 you will have far less people buy it. Hence, why we have this entire culture of companies "buying" you via ads and tracking. They do it because consumers encourage ads and tracking in their spending habits, And yeah, companies do have marketing. Another thing software developers don't like to accept is that companies need to market, you can have the best product but without marketing you will sell it to noone. Marketing doesn't mean spammy advertisements and aggressive tracking, there are good ways to advertise your product (like posting an in-depth review to HN with benefits and drawbacks). And marketing absolutely doesn't count as "payment". That attitude is like those influencers asking for services in exchange for "you'll be paid in reputation and experience"! You're absolutely right that nobody needs to use GitLab, and if nobody uses it GitLab will shut down. If all developers team up and decide that they won't use GitLab unless they offer everything free, then they will shut down. Do you want that to happen? Boycotts are good when you're boycotting something like Battlefront 2 for ridiculous micro-transactions, where EA actually has the resources to scale back (and if they don't, it is they're fault, because they're charging $60 for the base game), and a competitor can form and take over. But if you boycott companies with reasonable policies for making anything paid whatsoever, you're going to end up with 0 hosting providers, no competitor is going to appear, because they simply can't exist without going broke.

michaelt 4y ago

> we should think of those brave corporations who need to make money Gitlab are a corporation, sure - but they're also software developers. We-the-software-industry have long had something of a contradiction: Everybody wants to make a 6-figure salary developing software - but nobody wants to pay for a library or a database or a compiler or a linter or an OS or an IDE or a debugger or a code signing certificate, even if it's only $100/year. If you're launching a new database, it's not enough to give the binaries away for free - developers want the full source code too, and an unlimited commercial use license. And of course, nobody will want to commit their data to it if you imply there won't be 10+ years of free updates and bugfixes. You're going to ask for donations? You'd better not do it too aggressively. Except for a tiny handful of megacorporations like Amazon, and one or two products like Jetbrains IDEs, nobody refuses to pay developers quite like other developers.

Jensson 4y ago
Most products that are fun to build are free software because some developers built it as a hobby. But all the products that aren't fun to build aren't free, and there is where all the well paid jobs are and those wont go away since nobody wants to work on that shit for free, this is just simple supply and demand.
- MaxBarraclough 4y ago
  This isn't accurate. For instance, most contributions to the Linux kernel are written by paid professionals.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    But if the linux kernel became paid you would quickly see free alternatives spring up everywhere. The paid contributors to the kernel are corporate developers who wants to put their corporate stuff into the kernel, or need to change something to fix it for their corporation, they don't do it for charity.
    - 4y ago

HidyBush 4y ago

Curious how somehow if ten developers work together they are a nice community that needs to be supported, but the moment they sign a few documents and become a company they immeditely become a soulless entity whose exploitation, ridicule and abuse is morally justifiable.

zach_garwood 4y ago
Because those documents you glossed over created a legally distinct entity precisely to take the liability away from those who signed. If they didn't want this soulless entity to exist, they shouldn't have created it.
moffkalast 4y ago
I mean yeah the difference is that one's for profit and one isn't. That's the tipping point for just about anything. Do something really well for fun? Just a cool admirable hobby. The second you start to do it for money it becomes a job and people will judge you in a completely different light. As usual money ruins everything.
- HidyBush 4y ago
  >we are offering this for free as a community. no guarantees >we are offering this for free as a company. no guarantees if you think one's criticizable and the other one isn't I don't know what to tell you
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    A community has no inherent incentive to make money. A few guys on some discord working on public open source code nobody has legal rights to sell, all just because they like to do it? What's there to criticize? The sole point of a corporate entity is to make money. That's the whole point. There's no reason to assume otherwise unless it's a clear non-profit organization. People don't make a company out of the goodness of their heart. Hell, they wouldn't even open one if they didn't have to do it to pay taxes. Speaking from experience here.

troyvit 4y ago

Wow I haven't seriously considered the merits of Atlas Shrugged for 35 years but this comment makes me wish GitLab et. all would just pull up stakes, move to the mountains, and see how all the people who expect "free for life" SaaS get on doing stuff themselves. GitLab is an 8 year old underdog that's trying to push the limits of software development support and they made a change that affects "fewer than 2% of Free tier users within 0.3% of namespaces."[1] Maybe they don't know wtf they're doing but who does in this space? It's relatively new, competition is frantic, and companies are trying things. Maybe they always were planning on doing this, but maybe there were unintended consequences to offering this wide open free tier and they need to correct to stay solvent. Whatever the reason you're absolutely right: If you don't like the product, don't use it. That 2% of the freeriders weren't going to convert anyway so losing them (and a few of their cheerleaders) from the funnel won't hurt them at all, because in the end they supply excellent value to the other 98% of their base. [1] https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/03/24/efficient-free-tier/ https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2022/03/24/efficient-free-tier...