7 ms·

They didn't know their place, and still don't -- clearly. Dockerhub has very little to offer (basically hanging on by a thread) and doesn't deliver enough value

They didn't know their place, and still don't -- clearly. Dockerhub has very little to offer (basically hanging on by a thread) and doesn't deliver enough value to justify an expense for what was always claimed to be a free service. If you give something away for free, it better be just a starting point, for you to figure out how you're going to add enough value to justify people paying you. And then -- make your case and tell them why. Docker didn't do any of this. They literally tried to take a free product and just start charging for it. It feels the same as a restaurant who gave free toothpicks away suddenly want to start charging for them. This speaks to how out of touch their senior leadership is, and the only possible thing they can do to recover is to part ways with the leaders who made that terrible business decision. I've been in meetings like this before -- some analyst runs a SQL query and makes the case for charging for something that has always been free, and hamstrung leadership goes along with it because it sounds like such an easy way to "unlock value". What they really mean, is, easy way to make money off unsuspecting people via something that should probably be illegal, and would be in a different context (i.e. bait and switch).

AviationAtom 4y ago
Yep, the path to monetization is always adding new value-adds, not trying to charge for the current functionality after the fact.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  This assumes one knows how scalable such a generous free offering will be forever, on day one. Much more likely they were basically dumping to undercut the competition and gain market share. Though I suppose some startups are genuinely naive enough to just launch and hope they'll find a revenue stream rich enough later.
- brookst 4y ago
  So if someone underpriced today, they are obligated to give it to you for less forever?
  - raincole 4y ago
    Apparently all the free Docker users believe so. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, but they believe so. You need to count this when writing down your monetization plan. People nowadays are generally extremely entitled.
    - brookst 4y ago
      I’ve run a service that pissed off free users by charging for things that used to be free. It increased revenue and decreased costs from the tiny percentage that actually left. I think it’s win/win for any business that doesn’t rely on network effects.
      - AviationAtom 4y ago
        Part of Docker's issue was the executed it absolutely horribly. They gave a short suspense, very little detail, and few options for migrating under such a deadline.
  - AviationAtom 4y ago
    When people use your services in a matter assuming such, yes, I do believe so. At the very least you should grandfather in old users and only change it for new users going forward.
    - brookst 4y ago
      Do you expect raises at work to cover inflation at least?
      - AviationAtom 4y ago
        In my personal experience? No. I asked for 15%, knowing my co-workers made more than that, and inflation had been 9.1% YoY. I was told to be happy to get 3%. What did I do? Found a different job and employer. Jobs are like insurance rates: you should shop around occasionally. For businesses it's a cost of doing business when trying to compete to lure new workers.
paulryanrogers 4y ago
> What they really mean, is, easy way to make money off unsuspecting people via something that should probably be illegal, and would be in a different context (i.e. bait and switch). When a service is free I don't think you can say it's a bait and switch when the one offering can no longer afford giving so much away. Even for paid services, there is no guarantee prices won't rise once a contract expires, or at the next billing cycle. Now if they had promised free forever then perhaps a case could be made for false advertising.
- pcblues 4y ago
  This is an interesting point. If the alternative to charging for a free service is to cancel it, which should one do? This of course is usually a false dichotomy. An alternative is to set it free for an exchange of goodwill and perceived loss of potential monetary value. But hey, that's what a true friendship and family entails. Professional dishonesty is pernicious. Hand back your PR degrees, people, if you want to make the world a better place.
- majormajor 4y ago
  Should free services be heavily scrutinized as an anti-competitive dirty marketing tactic, then? If you have deeper pockets than your competitor you could bleed them dry by offering it for free until they're dead and then "coincidentally" not being able to afford keeping it free after that. I distrust free services as a consumer at this point, but I think it's unrealistic to expect enough people to do that to keep it from being a way of distorting the market and stifling competition. If it's less of a dirty trick and more of a "shit, we thought we'd figure something out, but we didn't" then I still think there being more scrutiny/regulation around free services could be beneficial purely to push companies away from stupid self-defeating and market-harming business models?
  - mulmen 4y ago
    $0.00 is a price like any other. A free service is a special case of the loss leader. How far do you extend this extra scrutiny?
tyingq 4y ago
I think they may not fully get that they basically exposed what their real moat is, and how people might work around it.
rad_gruchalski 4y ago
I find their $60/year plan okay for unlimited private registries, OCI registries, vulnerability scanning, granular permissions with app tokens, and builds. I am fully aware I can do some of that with GitHub, I am also paying for it, it costs me $12/month with a couple of orgs and an additional contributor. What other alternatives exist? I can do a registry with object storage backend, but I still have to host the registry container/VM itself, and I have no scanning, no ha, no permissions. I could use GitHub for everything maybe but who knows if they don’t jack up their prices? I’m also not confident about putting all my eggs in that basket. I could use quay, but that ain’t cheaper…
- freedomben 4y ago
  Docker hubs $5 per month plan is really good. It's a great service and great price.
  - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    Yes, I’d also pay $9/month to get organisations, if I needed those.
- dev_0 4y ago
  [dead]
nomilk 4y ago
They should be credited for immediately admitting fault [1] and reversing their decision. A stark contrast to SalesForce's response to the bait and switch on Heroku customers.. [1] https://blog.alexellis.io/docker-is-deleting-open-source-images/ https://blog.alexellis.io/docker-is-deleting-open-source-ima...
nunez 4y ago
That's literally what they did with Docker Desktop! 2018-2021: Look at this awesome free way of running Docker on your Mac and Windows! We're so awesome! 2021-: Oh, that? That's $800000/mo now. Pay up!
- kaashif 4y ago
  I still don't understand what the supposed value add of Docker Desktop really was for developers who just needed to run Linux Docker containers (I know there was some value for those needing Windows or Mac containers probably). A nice UI? At my company, we all had to uninstall Docker Desktop while they sorted out licensing and billing or whatever. While that was happening, everyone just switched to using Docker in WSL, almost overnight. For me the setup involved changing some settings in my IDE so that it used WSL, it was one drop-down in IntelliJ. I also used VS Code and that was even easier. The whole thing was very puzzling for me and thousands of other engineers. Many business decisions Docker makes are puzzling. But it seems to be working out for them.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    > But it seems to be working out for them. I'd say this pressure to monetize more of their services shows it's not working all that well.
    - kaashif 4y ago
      What I mean is that their drive to monetize has actually produced a lot of revenue, i.e. was a success. People were predicting some kind of mass migration away from the now paid Docker products and it didn't happen. The pressure to monetize further is just the usual endless growth stuff, it doesn't mean their previous monetization efforts actually went badly.
      - CoolCold 4y ago
        > People were predicting some kind of mass migration away from the now paid Docker products and it didn't happen. Do you have any links to analytics of that sort, would be interesting to read for me, thanks in advance!
justeleblanc 4y ago
Docker Hub has little to offer, and yet everyone was up in arms when what little they offered for free gets taken away. Don't you see the contradiction here?
- brookst 4y ago
  “The food at this restaurant is terrible!” “Yeah, and such small portions too!”
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    Nobody goes to that place anymore, it’s always far too busy!
  - justeleblanc 4y ago
    If that was really what was happening, then nobody would be upset if they started charging more. People would just stop going there.
    - brookst 4y ago
      It’s a famous old joke, about how people just want to complain. The joke is that these are probably repeat visitors who make the same complaints every time. It’s bad, and we want more.
      - justeleblanc 4y ago
        Gotcha. Not anglophone here, I don't know all the inside jokes yet!
- theamk 4y ago
  No, because there is no such thing as "everyone complaining". Those are different user groups. Docker Hub has little to offer to most commercial businesses. When we looked at it, it was hilariously slow and had basically no advantage over any other commercial registry. There was no reason to give our company dollars to Docker instead of Amazon or Google. Docker Hub is pretty important to open-source projects, as there are very few providers who are ready to distribute large binary files for free without ads or even possibility of them. It was also pretty important to tech companies who use said projects but lack the resources to set up private registry and build docker images they need. It's the former users who bring money to Docker, and it were latter users who were complaining. There is definitely some overlap but unfortunately (for Docker the company) it is not that big.
dev_0 4y ago
[dead]
AlchemistCamp 4y ago
There’s nothing inherently wrong about an initial free period for a product. In many cases it’s a rational launch strategy. On the other hand, it’s both irrational and incredibly entitled to expect that anything anyone ever gives you for free will be available for free in unlimited quantities, in perpetuity.

AviationAtom 4y ago

Yep, the path to monetization is always adding new value-adds, not trying to charge for the current functionality after the fact.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
This assumes one knows how scalable such a generous free offering will be forever, on day one. Much more likely they were basically dumping to undercut the competition and gain market share. Though I suppose some startups are genuinely naive enough to just launch and hope they'll find a revenue stream rich enough later.
brookst 4y ago
So if someone underpriced today, they are obligated to give it to you for less forever?
- raincole 4y ago
  Apparently all the free Docker users believe so. I'm not saying they're right or wrong, but they believe so. You need to count this when writing down your monetization plan. People nowadays are generally extremely entitled.
  - brookst 4y ago
    I’ve run a service that pissed off free users by charging for things that used to be free. It increased revenue and decreased costs from the tiny percentage that actually left. I think it’s win/win for any business that doesn’t rely on network effects.
    - AviationAtom 4y ago
      Part of Docker's issue was the executed it absolutely horribly. They gave a short suspense, very little detail, and few options for migrating under such a deadline.
- AviationAtom 4y ago
  When people use your services in a matter assuming such, yes, I do believe so. At the very least you should grandfather in old users and only change it for new users going forward.
  - brookst 4y ago
    Do you expect raises at work to cover inflation at least?
    - AviationAtom 4y ago
      In my personal experience? No. I asked for 15%, knowing my co-workers made more than that, and inflation had been 9.1% YoY. I was told to be happy to get 3%. What did I do? Found a different job and employer. Jobs are like insurance rates: you should shop around occasionally. For businesses it's a cost of doing business when trying to compete to lure new workers.

paulryanrogers 4y ago

> What they really mean, is, easy way to make money off unsuspecting people via something that should probably be illegal, and would be in a different context (i.e. bait and switch). When a service is free I don't think you can say it's a bait and switch when the one offering can no longer afford giving so much away. Even for paid services, there is no guarantee prices won't rise once a contract expires, or at the next billing cycle. Now if they had promised free forever then perhaps a case could be made for false advertising.

pcblues 4y ago
This is an interesting point. If the alternative to charging for a free service is to cancel it, which should one do? This of course is usually a false dichotomy. An alternative is to set it free for an exchange of goodwill and perceived loss of potential monetary value. But hey, that's what a true friendship and family entails. Professional dishonesty is pernicious. Hand back your PR degrees, people, if you want to make the world a better place.
majormajor 4y ago
Should free services be heavily scrutinized as an anti-competitive dirty marketing tactic, then? If you have deeper pockets than your competitor you could bleed them dry by offering it for free until they're dead and then "coincidentally" not being able to afford keeping it free after that. I distrust free services as a consumer at this point, but I think it's unrealistic to expect enough people to do that to keep it from being a way of distorting the market and stifling competition. If it's less of a dirty trick and more of a "shit, we thought we'd figure something out, but we didn't" then I still think there being more scrutiny/regulation around free services could be beneficial purely to push companies away from stupid self-defeating and market-harming business models?
- mulmen 4y ago
  $0.00 is a price like any other. A free service is a special case of the loss leader. How far do you extend this extra scrutiny?

tyingq 4y ago

I think they may not fully get that they basically exposed what their real moat is, and how people might work around it.

rad_gruchalski 4y ago

I find their $60/year plan okay for unlimited private registries, OCI registries, vulnerability scanning, granular permissions with app tokens, and builds. I am fully aware I can do some of that with GitHub, I am also paying for it, it costs me $12/month with a couple of orgs and an additional contributor. What other alternatives exist? I can do a registry with object storage backend, but I still have to host the registry container/VM itself, and I have no scanning, no ha, no permissions. I could use GitHub for everything maybe but who knows if they don’t jack up their prices? I’m also not confident about putting all my eggs in that basket. I could use quay, but that ain’t cheaper…

freedomben 4y ago
Docker hubs $5 per month plan is really good. It's a great service and great price.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  Yes, I’d also pay $9/month to get organisations, if I needed those.
dev_0 4y ago
[dead]

nomilk 4y ago

They should be credited for immediately admitting fault [1] and reversing their decision. A stark contrast to SalesForce's response to the bait and switch on Heroku customers.. [1] https://blog.alexellis.io/docker-is-deleting-open-source-images/ https://blog.alexellis.io/docker-is-deleting-open-source-ima...

nunez 4y ago

That's literally what they did with Docker Desktop! 2018-2021: Look at this awesome free way of running Docker on your Mac and Windows! We're so awesome! 2021-: Oh, that? That's $800000/mo now. Pay up!

kaashif 4y ago
I still don't understand what the supposed value add of Docker Desktop really was for developers who just needed to run Linux Docker containers (I know there was some value for those needing Windows or Mac containers probably). A nice UI? At my company, we all had to uninstall Docker Desktop while they sorted out licensing and billing or whatever. While that was happening, everyone just switched to using Docker in WSL, almost overnight. For me the setup involved changing some settings in my IDE so that it used WSL, it was one drop-down in IntelliJ. I also used VS Code and that was even easier. The whole thing was very puzzling for me and thousands of other engineers. Many business decisions Docker makes are puzzling. But it seems to be working out for them.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  > But it seems to be working out for them. I'd say this pressure to monetize more of their services shows it's not working all that well.
  - kaashif 4y ago
    What I mean is that their drive to monetize has actually produced a lot of revenue, i.e. was a success. People were predicting some kind of mass migration away from the now paid Docker products and it didn't happen. The pressure to monetize further is just the usual endless growth stuff, it doesn't mean their previous monetization efforts actually went badly.
    - CoolCold 4y ago
      > People were predicting some kind of mass migration away from the now paid Docker products and it didn't happen. Do you have any links to analytics of that sort, would be interesting to read for me, thanks in advance!

justeleblanc 4y ago

Docker Hub has little to offer, and yet everyone was up in arms when what little they offered for free gets taken away. Don't you see the contradiction here?

brookst 4y ago
“The food at this restaurant is terrible!” “Yeah, and such small portions too!”
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Nobody goes to that place anymore, it’s always far too busy!
- justeleblanc 4y ago
  If that was really what was happening, then nobody would be upset if they started charging more. People would just stop going there.
  - brookst 4y ago
    It’s a famous old joke, about how people just want to complain. The joke is that these are probably repeat visitors who make the same complaints every time. It’s bad, and we want more.
    - justeleblanc 4y ago
      Gotcha. Not anglophone here, I don't know all the inside jokes yet!
theamk 4y ago
No, because there is no such thing as "everyone complaining". Those are different user groups. Docker Hub has little to offer to most commercial businesses. When we looked at it, it was hilariously slow and had basically no advantage over any other commercial registry. There was no reason to give our company dollars to Docker instead of Amazon or Google. Docker Hub is pretty important to open-source projects, as there are very few providers who are ready to distribute large binary files for free without ads or even possibility of them. It was also pretty important to tech companies who use said projects but lack the resources to set up private registry and build docker images they need. It's the former users who bring money to Docker, and it were latter users who were complaining. There is definitely some overlap but unfortunately (for Docker the company) it is not that big.

dev_0 4y ago

[dead]

AlchemistCamp 4y ago

There’s nothing inherently wrong about an initial free period for a product. In many cases it’s a rational launch strategy. On the other hand, it’s both irrational and incredibly entitled to expect that anything anyone ever gives you for free will be available for free in unlimited quantities, in perpetuity.