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In an open market with alternatives I can’t really sympathize with points of view such as “I don’t like that pricing went up so my vendor can be profitable.” If

• paxys 3y ago
  Especially considering there isn't a high barrier to entry in the space and there are a hundred alternatives, with more popping up every day. If a polished, fully-featured service charging like $10/mo is too much then it's really your expectations that are the problem.
• pantsforbirds 3y ago
  If you don't want the AI features it would make sense to be unhappy with the pricing changes.
  • okdood64 3y ago
    That's fine. > so my vendor can be profitable But this is a ridiculous notion.
    • Msw242 3y ago
      No it's not. You do want your vendors to make money working with you. That way they are incentivized to help.
      • wahnfrieden 3y ago
        Google makes money from me, and is thoroughly enshittified. The goal of business is state-backed monopoly and extraction, which is not always aligned with or predicated on user value. I generally find superior value from sources that are less singularly profit motivated such as worker-owned organizations or public goods providers
      • pbhjpbhj 3y ago
        Wages are incentive to work, profits are cream taken by the rich, no?
      • okdood64 3y ago
        We're in agreement; I think what I wrote got interpreted in the opposite way.
• Etheryte 3y ago
  This argument doesn't really make any sense. Why would anyone be loyal to one specific vendor when, as you say, there's many comparable alternatives available? You don't intentionally buy food at the most expensive store just to make the store more sustainable/profitable, do you?
  • jgalt212 3y ago
    And we wonder why tech has a monopoly problem?
    • ericjmorey 3y ago
      Could you expand on that?
      • matisseverduyn 3y ago
        Not sure of OP's reasoning, but... If you're trying to start an actual business, it's very very difficult to get people to pay for your solution when a large incumbent can just pay people to use their competitive (potentially sub-standard) product by burning through mountains of, (sometimes not even their own), money. Or once you start to gain some traction, deplatform you from social/search, or bury you in frivolous lawsuits. It can be done, it's just not very straightforward (unless you also already have your own mountains of cash, or are very well connected). But, business is business, so sink or swim? Otherwise, it's much easier to ride someone else's huge marketing budget (Apple App Store, WordPress plugins, ChatGPT etc.), which doesn't change the competitive landscape and gives those incumbents even more power (merchants/developers/creators touched by the platform's Midas finger become dependent on the platform because it's their income, then their users buy further into the parent system, etc.).
  • jehb 3y ago
    > You don't intentionally buy food at the most expensive store just to make the store more sustainable/profitable, do you? I do, actually, because I want my local natural foods co-op to stay in business. But your point still stands. The alternatives aren't actually comparable, because they're for-profit entities, and I don't want my food budget going to them.
• sokoloff 3y ago
  Isn’t that what makes a market with price elasticity? Some participants choose to buy at price X with features {F}, but not to buy at price X + Y with a smaller feature set. > Replit changed its paid tiers by raising the price of my plan and removing some features. That’s a healthy and fine market outcome. What was worth it before is now no longer worth it to some buyer. Neither the ex-buyer nor seller should be surprised or upset here, as the points of view of both are entirely rational.
• avg_dev 3y ago
  A couple of thoughts: 1. Since you say it is an open market with alternatives, I don’t see why you seem to take issue with the blog post author taking one of the alternatives. 2. I thought the author did have some issues with the product. Like lack of persistence of uploaded files, price going up, and the support for the author’s current main language, Lisp, being not as good as for Python.
  • _sword 3y ago
    These two sentences inspired me to comment: “I actually saw it coming when Replit began receiving massive funding by major investors, who are likely pressuring the company to reduce costs and turn profits. Still, this left a sour taste as it felt like a bait and switch.” I don’t see how it’s a bait and switch to increase prices to a sustainable level if it wasn’t previously there. If you like a SaaS product you should hope their business model is aligned for durability exclusive of burning VC cash in my view. If the product doesn’t meet your needs, fair game. Complain away it’s good feedback the vendor needs to hear to improve. Vote with your dollars like this author did.
    • sokoloff 3y ago
      > If you like a SaaS product you should hope their business model is aligned for durability exclusive of burning VC cash in my view. Sure, but that doesn't make their actions not bait[ing you with a low price and lots of features] and switch[ing plans to remove some of those features and raise the price]. It's still a bait-and-switch move, IMO. You might choose to tolerate or accept it in the interests of the company being sustainable, making it a "bait and switch that you're OK with".
• DistractionRect 3y ago
  They don't like it that they're being asked to pay more, while removing features they use, for new features they won't use. Replit could have easily lumped AI features under an add on plan instead of pushing the costs onto everyone. Since they have to maintain files and lisp support out of band, they're really not far off from running dev containers, which defeats the point of Replit. Edit: clarity
• meiraleal 3y ago
  > If you like a product and want it to be available long term, you would want it to be a self sustaining business, not a cash bonfire. Do I have a say on how they should/shouldn't invest their money? I imagined. So I can't really sympathize with points of views such as this. Are tech companies entitled to eternal growth?
• eropple 3y ago
  The alternative read here is "it's not a viable product if it's not worth paying for."
• Xelbair 3y ago
  why would I, an user, should care at all about anything that my service provider does internally? Why shouldn't i switch to any other provider as soon as I'm unsatisfied with current one? This seems like really really dumb line of thought that leaves you to be exploited by service providers. It's basically mental vendor lock-in. It's up to service provider to find out the profitable business model, and you don't need to integrate deeply with such unprofitable service providers.
  • pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    Morals?
    • Xelbair 3y ago
      What? What kind of attachment i have to service provider other than bloody contract? Do not push 'morals' to the end user of service. Make a system that enforces companies to not break them in the first place.
    • zogrodea 3y ago
      Would you mind elaborating on the moral argument for continuing to support a company whose service no longer aligns with your goals/needs? I think the best moral argument I can come up with is trust/loyalty and viewing it as a relationship, but that's not emotionally persuasive with large companies like we have in tech I think.
      • pbhjpbhj 3y ago
        The question from Xelbair was: >>> why would I, an user, should care at all about anything that my service provider does internally? I suggested, "morals". In short, I responded to a question asked but you seemed mistakenly to think I was responding to the context in general. In any case, let's go reductio ad absurdum, if your service provider employed child and/or slave labour then you may feel that enriching them with your custom was not appropriate. There's a whole industry [0] devoted to choosing manufacturers according to their morals and socio-political positions; I thought the response was self-explanatory. As far as paying a company that doesn't meet your needs any longer. I've done this when I approve of the company as a general source of good (benevolence). But only on a couple of occasions. I'm sure it's a very weak signal. Yes, with large for profit companies I'm not going to do this. There is a situation where you might - to retain rights that are given to customers. Some people pay for the cheapest insurance to get access to discounts (UK) afforded to customers. There might be a situation where retaining customer rights was like having a company on retainer which probably comes into your trust/loyalty category. [0] eg https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/
• szundi 3y ago
  While I completely agree with your reasoning, the end conclusion misses an other point: some companies are effective and efficient at the same time, while others are not. So making a switch can make complete sense even if your reasoning is followed.
• figassis 3y ago
  This seems like a disingenuous comment. No one wants a vendor to be unprofitable. Sometimes a business is extremely profitable but just wants more profit, and then after they reach that profit, they want more. The problem is vendors want ever increasing profit and often they do this while being incredibly wasteful, so they take ever more customer money, burn it needlessly and then try to tell you that if you complain is because you want free stuff.
• croes 3y ago
  Who says they weren't profitable before the price change? Maybe people get upset with higher prices paired with fewer features. Or are you ok if food companies reduce the package content and raise the price at the same time? It's for profit, you know?
• bachmeier 3y ago
  > If you like a product and want it to be available long term, you would want it to be a self sustaining business, not a cash bonfire. In the absence of a source showing all of their financials, this isn't a particularly helpful comment. Beyond that, if they raise the price too much and go out of business, their customers are certainly not better off.
• wlesieutre 3y ago
  On the flip side, if your business model is “we’re going to set hundreds of millions of dollars on fire to entice customers with artificially low prices to try and corner the market” you can’t really be surprised that when you eventually raise prices you’ll lose your price sensitive customers to the competition.
  • _sword 3y ago
    Completely agreed and that’s why I started my comment about open and competitive markets. Pricing under cost with VC cash subsidies to later raise prices after cornering a market is vicious and anticompetitive in my view. And it’s a market where consumers shouldn’t be surprised about prices rising aggressively over time
  • esafak 3y ago
    Factor that in when choosing a product, and support competition so you can jump ship if push comes to shove. And enjoy the subsidy while you can.
• Digory 3y ago
  > If you like a product and want it to be available long term, you would want it to be a self sustaining business, not a cash bonfire. He doesn’t want the product at the current price. It’s a bad value for him. You’re requiring the consumer to want management’s goal. But product survival is not a buyer’s goal. The buyer has limited money, and wants his own profitability.
• wetpaws 3y ago
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