4 ms·

What's the problem with the pricing? It seems pretty fair to me, free for users and paid for teams basically.

by password1 4y ago

sli 4y ago
Rent-seeking over a terminal emulator is pathological at best.
- throw10920 4y ago
  The software-as-a-service model is literally not rent-seeking, by the definition of "rent-seeking"[1]. Please stop lying about it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33632437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33632437
  - hansvm 4y ago
    Unless ongoing costs are essential to the thing being provided then it is, by definition, rent seeking. If you sell me a book, the fact that I continue to derive value from it for years to come might be an argument that you could get away with selling it to me as a subscription, but doing so would by definition be rent seeking unless the subscription offered additional value to me somehow, and an alternative and more palatable model for extracting additional profits in proportion to the value in receiving would be to just charge more for the purchase.
    - throw10920 4y ago
      > Unless ongoing costs are essential to the thing being provided That's not the definition of rent-seeking. "Rent seeking [...] is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp The "reciprocal contribution of productivity" provided by the Warp developers is increased functionality of the software. You can argue that you'd rather pay once for a particular version of the software (I would), or that you don't want to pay for a terminal emulator in the first place (I don't either), or that the Warp devs could stop improving the software in the future (and they could), but "rent-seeking" is still an incorrect description of their business model, and is only used by people who have an agenda trying to slander Warp for some reason.
      - hansvm 4y ago
        > "Rent seeking [...] is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity." But implicit in "reciprocal contribution of productivity" is "compared to what." After having installed a barrier across a river, productivity increases by charging a fee and lifting that barrier. In that same vein, Warp spending extra development effort to block continued use of something you've already paid for and downloaded to your machine unless you keep giving them money is textbook rent-seeking UNLESS there's some value they're adding by doing so. Admittedly I should have referenced that value rather than their costs, but in practice the two are related because organizations aren't inclined to incur costs without adding value somewhere. > and is only used by people who have an agenda trying to slander Warp for some reason That seems like an unnecessary ad hominem. I don't even particularly care that they are rent-seeking. I just don't want to see that term redefined so far that we have to come up with some other name to refer to the same bloody concept, and especially not for the purpose of needlessly bolstering the profits of artificial SAAS. We're all adults here, and anyone who cares is presumably capable of making a proper argument for why rent-seeking is acceptable here rather than trying to redefine the word to brush their payment model under the rug.

What's the problem with the pricing? It seems pretty fair to me, free for users and paid for teams basically.

sli 4y ago

Rent-seeking over a terminal emulator is pathological at best.

throw10920 4y ago
The software-as-a-service model is literally not rent-seeking, by the definition of "rent-seeking"[1]. Please stop lying about it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33632437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33632437
- hansvm 4y ago
  Unless ongoing costs are essential to the thing being provided then it is, by definition, rent seeking. If you sell me a book, the fact that I continue to derive value from it for years to come might be an argument that you could get away with selling it to me as a subscription, but doing so would by definition be rent seeking unless the subscription offered additional value to me somehow, and an alternative and more palatable model for extracting additional profits in proportion to the value in receiving would be to just charge more for the purchase.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    > Unless ongoing costs are essential to the thing being provided That's not the definition of rent-seeking. "Rent seeking [...] is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rentseeking.asp The "reciprocal contribution of productivity" provided by the Warp developers is increased functionality of the software. You can argue that you'd rather pay once for a particular version of the software (I would), or that you don't want to pay for a terminal emulator in the first place (I don't either), or that the Warp devs could stop improving the software in the future (and they could), but "rent-seeking" is still an incorrect description of their business model, and is only used by people who have an agenda trying to slander Warp for some reason.
    - hansvm 4y ago
      > "Rent seeking [...] is an economic concept that occurs when an entity seeks to gain added wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity." But implicit in "reciprocal contribution of productivity" is "compared to what." After having installed a barrier across a river, productivity increases by charging a fee and lifting that barrier. In that same vein, Warp spending extra development effort to block continued use of something you've already paid for and downloaded to your machine unless you keep giving them money is textbook rent-seeking UNLESS there's some value they're adding by doing so. Admittedly I should have referenced that value rather than their costs, but in practice the two are related because organizations aren't inclined to incur costs without adding value somewhere. > and is only used by people who have an agenda trying to slander Warp for some reason That seems like an unnecessary ad hominem. I don't even particularly care that they are rent-seeking. I just don't want to see that term redefined so far that we have to come up with some other name to refer to the same bloody concept, and especially not for the purpose of needlessly bolstering the profits of artificial SAAS. We're all adults here, and anyone who cares is presumably capable of making a proper argument for why rent-seeking is acceptable here rather than trying to redefine the word to brush their payment model under the rug.