4 ms·

I'm sure you like your site, but to be honest anything that doesn't make at least $3,675 per year is not a business, it's a hobby. Nobody said that hobbies are

I'm sure you like your site, but to be honest anything that doesn't make at least $3,675 per year is not a business, it's a hobby. Nobody said that hobbies are insignificant, they just don't (necessarily) make money.

pilsetnieks 3y ago
It's one cost of so very many these days. These prices (per instance!) add up; there are many other pieces of software clamoring for their share, hardware costs, networking costs, labor costs. It's death by a thousand cuts.
aftbit 3y ago
If it were $3675/business/year, I might agree. But $3675/server-instance/year is insanely expensive for many very real businesses. That's $300/month! Imagine a business like Shopify, but with one server instance per customer. No way can you afford to do that if you have to buy nginx pro for each instance. Unit economics still matter to lots of businesses. That said, you can run quite a big site without any of these features just fine. Also nginx is open source and you can implement these features yourself, either using C or Lua, relatively easily as well.
- lolinder 3y ago
  nginx is a reverse proxy. You're not meant to be running dozens of instances, you're supposed to stick one instance in front of a whole collection of application instances. Your nginx costs don't scale with your server load, they scale with your infrastructure complexity.
  - monocasa 3y ago
    Nginx is a lot more than a reverse proxy, including a not too shabby static resouce host. In fact Netflix hosts their videos ultimately from Nginx.
hinkley 3y ago
You're saying anything that makes under $4k a year isn't a business, but you're using it to justify that anything that makes under $8k a year isn't a business. Because you're earmarking those profits to go to a vendor, which then are not profits. Are people not entitled to make $300 a month because they owe Nginx for a bot throttling feature? Can you run a small website without throttling these days?
- kelnos 3y ago
  On the other hand, though, why does anyone believe they're entitled to a bot-throttling feature for free? Certainly someone could write and release a third-party, open-source nginx module to do bot throttling, if they wanted to.
- messe 3y ago
  > Are people not entitled to make $300 a month because they owe Nginx for a bot throttling feature? Where is this attitude of entitlement coming from? Are people entitled to use Nginx's code for free? Yes, free software is a wonderful thing, and I do believe that most software should be free. But the reality, in this world, is that software developers need to eat, and relying solely on donations only works for a handful of projects (as does relying on selling support). Open-core is a reasonable middle ground. If somebody wants to reimplement that feature on top of Nginx and release it under a free license, there's absolutely nothing stopping them. If you want to use an already written and well-integrated version from Nginx themselves, then you can pay up.
harry8 3y ago
Profit is the difference between hobby and not? Non-profits are not hobbies.
- selcuka 3y ago
  I didn't say anything about profit. Non-profits do (and should) make and spend money, too.
  - harry8 3y ago
    Charities should make money? Best to you.

pilsetnieks 3y ago

It's one cost of so very many these days. These prices (per instance!) add up; there are many other pieces of software clamoring for their share, hardware costs, networking costs, labor costs. It's death by a thousand cuts.

aftbit 3y ago

If it were $3675/business/year, I might agree. But $3675/server-instance/year is insanely expensive for many very real businesses. That's $300/month! Imagine a business like Shopify, but with one server instance per customer. No way can you afford to do that if you have to buy nginx pro for each instance. Unit economics still matter to lots of businesses. That said, you can run quite a big site without any of these features just fine. Also nginx is open source and you can implement these features yourself, either using C or Lua, relatively easily as well.

lolinder 3y ago
nginx is a reverse proxy. You're not meant to be running dozens of instances, you're supposed to stick one instance in front of a whole collection of application instances. Your nginx costs don't scale with your server load, they scale with your infrastructure complexity.
- monocasa 3y ago
  Nginx is a lot more than a reverse proxy, including a not too shabby static resouce host. In fact Netflix hosts their videos ultimately from Nginx.

hinkley 3y ago

You're saying anything that makes under $4k a year isn't a business, but you're using it to justify that anything that makes under $8k a year isn't a business. Because you're earmarking those profits to go to a vendor, which then are not profits. Are people not entitled to make $300 a month because they owe Nginx for a bot throttling feature? Can you run a small website without throttling these days?

kelnos 3y ago
On the other hand, though, why does anyone believe they're entitled to a bot-throttling feature for free? Certainly someone could write and release a third-party, open-source nginx module to do bot throttling, if they wanted to.
messe 3y ago
> Are people not entitled to make $300 a month because they owe Nginx for a bot throttling feature? Where is this attitude of entitlement coming from? Are people entitled to use Nginx's code for free? Yes, free software is a wonderful thing, and I do believe that most software should be free. But the reality, in this world, is that software developers need to eat, and relying solely on donations only works for a handful of projects (as does relying on selling support). Open-core is a reasonable middle ground. If somebody wants to reimplement that feature on top of Nginx and release it under a free license, there's absolutely nothing stopping them. If you want to use an already written and well-integrated version from Nginx themselves, then you can pay up.

harry8 3y ago

Profit is the difference between hobby and not? Non-profits are not hobbies.

selcuka 3y ago
I didn't say anything about profit. Non-profits do (and should) make and spend money, too.
- harry8 3y ago
  Charities should make money? Best to you.