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Open source creates the largest possible market share for the project. Those doing most of the code contributions will miss out on monetizing a lot of this mark
by gregwebs 3y ago
Open source creates the largest possible market share for the project.
Those doing most of the code contributions will miss out on monetizing a lot of this market. But it's better to monetize 10% of a market that is 100x bigger than monetize 100% of a market that is 100x smaller. Even if someone else isn't contributing much and is monetizing another 1% of the market.
- tonyarkles 3y agoI am pro-open source, I contribute back to projects, I've been doing this since the 90s. I'm going to gently push back a little bit on this: > But it's better to monetize 10% of a market that is 100x bigger than monetize 100% of a market that is 100x smaller. The piece to really think about is the support burden. Yes, with your numbers, you've monetized 10x net more users. But you have 100x more users who think you owe them free tech support, and if you are sufficiently curt while telling them "I don't care if you're having problems, the people who pay me are happy. If you want help, you too can pay me", you can quickly end up with a much smaller market than if you just had a much smaller happy set of closed-source users to being with. Open Source is amazing. I wouldn't in a million years want to be the maintainer of a large open-source project. The people who do that without burning out deserve sainthood.
- gregwebs 3y agoYou are talking about unmonetized open source (which I agree with you about). But the context of this conversation is companies monetizing open source. I have been in both situations and it wasn’t a problem when at the company monetizing.