3 ms·

Datasette is a open project from simon willison (a fairly well known HNer), and this looks like his monetisation project - good luck to you, hope Softbank buys

Datasette is a open project from simon willison (a fairly well known HNer), and this looks like his monetisation project - good luck to you, hope Softbank buys you out soon :-) (It's a sort of wrapper around sqlite files so it's fairly easy to publish a file, think maybe Tableau for sqlite?) Anyway all the best

dunk010 3y ago
Bit cynical, no?
- yaseer 3y ago
  I interpreted the tone as friendly, lighthearted humour, rather than cynical.
- adg33 3y ago
  The cynical thing is to interpret something that talks about monetization as negative - it's a good thing Datasette is finding a way to make money. Great tool that fills out the SQLite ecosystem well - I always have a server running when I'm working with applications with SQLite databases.
  - dunk010 3y ago
    > hope Softbank buys you out soon :-) The cynical thing is to say this is about monetisation and an exit, rather than about making an excellent tool more easily available to journalists.
    - jakelazaroff 3y ago
      The Softbank line was definitely a joke.
- thomascountz 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - bertman 3y ago
    No offense, but was this comment written by ChatGPT or something? Please blink if not.
    - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
      Yes my original comment was supportive (an HNer launching a saas like based on their Foss work - great !) Honestly this is HN - if we don't sound a little bit like AI generated text anyhow something went wrong :-)
      - deely3 3y ago
        You not blinking.
        CRConrad 3y ago
        Yes they are. In... Is that Morse code?
anyfactor 3y ago
I am generally a naive and simple person. I think I would appreciate some investment to make Datasette "more approachable" and user-friendly for laypeople. Datasette's UX and setup seem to be more geared towards data hackers with a hobby in reporting. Personally, I don't see it as a standard toolkit for data reporting or data journalism. Even though you might argue, "What more do you want? It's as simple as it gets", to be honest, Simon has mentioned that their intended users are journalists who may not possess data hacking skills required to get started with Datasette. Datasette is not a BI tool or an OSINT tool. As it is, Datasette is positioned between data enthusiasts and investigative reporters which is a very narrow niche. This severely limits its potential. Simon should consider monetization and, more specifically, hiring individuals who can make Datasette Cloud more accessible. I think he recognizes this as he has created a GUI application which is a step in the right direction.
- swyx 3y ago
  > As it is, Datasette is positioned between data enthusiasts and investigative reporters which is a very narrow niche. This severely limits its potential. i bet in 2005 if you asked Simon what Django was initially intended to be, he'd say something similarly niche. dot dot dot, it became the backend for Instagram. gotta change hats from evaluating present state to future potential when presented with something new, particularly when the author has a track record.
  - simonw 3y ago
    In 2005 Adrian and I though Django was a CMS for newspaper websites! https://simonwillison.net/2010/Aug/24/what-is-the-history/ https://simonwillison.net/2010/Aug/24/what-is-the-history/ Kind of funny that it's nearly 20 years later and I'm working on something else that I initially thought would be for journalists but is clearly useful for way more than that.
- simonw 3y ago
  That's absolutely part of the plan here: I want to grow Datasette to a size where I can have full-time UX and design people working with me on it. I'm also cautiously optimistic about the role LLMs can play here - hence https://llm.datasette.io/ https://llm.datasette.io/ Journalists are good at words. An interface to their data that plays to their strengths there feels like it could be transformational - provided it doesn't hallucinate at them!
simonw 3y ago
Hah, Softbank isn't the goal here! I realized that Datasette is the first project of my entire career where if I was still working on it in 15 years time I wouldn't feel bored yet. There's just SO MUCH scope for interesting applications of the core idea. As such, I want to work on it for decades. But it's lonely working on it alone (the community around it has been growing and is delightful, but it's not the same as having a full-time team.) So the question I'm trying to answer is how to make the project financially sustainable in the long-run - not just for myself, but so I can pay for a team to work on it with me. There are plenty of other examples of open source projects that have turned SaaS hosting into a sustainable business model - WordPress and GitLab are just two of the best examples. It feels like it's a reasonably well-trodden path. Plus... I want people to be able to use my software. Currently to use Datasette as an individual you either have to "pip" or "brew" install it, or you can try the macOS Electron app - https://datasette.io/desktop https://datasette.io/desktop - but I want newsrooms to be able to use it to collaborate on data. And most newsrooms aren't well equipped to configure a Linux server. So I realized that a hosted SaaS version can solve two issues at once: it can help the audience I care about actually benefit from the value of the software so far, and it provides a reasonably realistic path to financial sustainability for the project as a whole. And yeah, I'd also like to make a ton of money out of it myself too!

dunk010 3y ago

Bit cynical, no?

yaseer 3y ago
I interpreted the tone as friendly, lighthearted humour, rather than cynical.
adg33 3y ago
The cynical thing is to interpret something that talks about monetization as negative - it's a good thing Datasette is finding a way to make money. Great tool that fills out the SQLite ecosystem well - I always have a server running when I'm working with applications with SQLite databases.
- dunk010 3y ago
  > hope Softbank buys you out soon :-) The cynical thing is to say this is about monetisation and an exit, rather than about making an excellent tool more easily available to journalists.
  - jakelazaroff 3y ago
    The Softbank line was definitely a joke.
thomascountz 3y ago
[flagged]
- bertman 3y ago
  No offense, but was this comment written by ChatGPT or something? Please blink if not.
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    Yes my original comment was supportive (an HNer launching a saas like based on their Foss work - great !) Honestly this is HN - if we don't sound a little bit like AI generated text anyhow something went wrong :-)
    - deely3 3y ago
      You not blinking.
      - CRConrad 3y ago
        Yes they are. In... Is that Morse code?

anyfactor 3y ago

I am generally a naive and simple person. I think I would appreciate some investment to make Datasette "more approachable" and user-friendly for laypeople. Datasette's UX and setup seem to be more geared towards data hackers with a hobby in reporting. Personally, I don't see it as a standard toolkit for data reporting or data journalism. Even though you might argue, "What more do you want? It's as simple as it gets", to be honest, Simon has mentioned that their intended users are journalists who may not possess data hacking skills required to get started with Datasette. Datasette is not a BI tool or an OSINT tool. As it is, Datasette is positioned between data enthusiasts and investigative reporters which is a very narrow niche. This severely limits its potential. Simon should consider monetization and, more specifically, hiring individuals who can make Datasette Cloud more accessible. I think he recognizes this as he has created a GUI application which is a step in the right direction.

swyx 3y ago
> As it is, Datasette is positioned between data enthusiasts and investigative reporters which is a very narrow niche. This severely limits its potential. i bet in 2005 if you asked Simon what Django was initially intended to be, he'd say something similarly niche. dot dot dot, it became the backend for Instagram. gotta change hats from evaluating present state to future potential when presented with something new, particularly when the author has a track record.
- simonw 3y ago
  In 2005 Adrian and I though Django was a CMS for newspaper websites! https://simonwillison.net/2010/Aug/24/what-is-the-history/ https://simonwillison.net/2010/Aug/24/what-is-the-history/ Kind of funny that it's nearly 20 years later and I'm working on something else that I initially thought would be for journalists but is clearly useful for way more than that.
simonw 3y ago
That's absolutely part of the plan here: I want to grow Datasette to a size where I can have full-time UX and design people working with me on it. I'm also cautiously optimistic about the role LLMs can play here - hence https://llm.datasette.io/ https://llm.datasette.io/ Journalists are good at words. An interface to their data that plays to their strengths there feels like it could be transformational - provided it doesn't hallucinate at them!

simonw 3y ago

Hah, Softbank isn't the goal here! I realized that Datasette is the first project of my entire career where if I was still working on it in 15 years time I wouldn't feel bored yet. There's just SO MUCH scope for interesting applications of the core idea. As such, I want to work on it for decades. But it's lonely working on it alone (the community around it has been growing and is delightful, but it's not the same as having a full-time team.) So the question I'm trying to answer is how to make the project financially sustainable in the long-run - not just for myself, but so I can pay for a team to work on it with me. There are plenty of other examples of open source projects that have turned SaaS hosting into a sustainable business model - WordPress and GitLab are just two of the best examples. It feels like it's a reasonably well-trodden path. Plus... I want people to be able to use my software. Currently to use Datasette as an individual you either have to "pip" or "brew" install it, or you can try the macOS Electron app - https://datasette.io/desktop https://datasette.io/desktop - but I want newsrooms to be able to use it to collaborate on data. And most newsrooms aren't well equipped to configure a Linux server. So I realized that a hosted SaaS version can solve two issues at once: it can help the audience I care about actually benefit from the value of the software so far, and it provides a reasonably realistic path to financial sustainability for the project as a whole. And yeah, I'd also like to make a ton of money out of it myself too!