4 ms·

Worth noting at the time of “Developers, developers, developers” an MSDN subscription was about $2500 per year, or about $4.5k in today’s dollars, and I believe

Worth noting at the time of “Developers, developers, developers” an MSDN subscription was about $2500 per year, or about $4.5k in today’s dollars, and I believe that was per seat. So developers footing the costs of the developer ecosystem isn’t exactly a new paradigm.

w4 3y ago
I didn't know that - appreciate the context. Ironically it drives home my point in a way I wasn't aware of. The “developers, developers, developers” moment happened near the apex of Microsoft's monopoly.
- tpmoney 3y ago
  Even in non-monopoly situations, the world of free, high quality, developer eco-systems is relatively new. Console SDKs have always expensive even discounting that you had to buy/lease specialized hardware. For example, GameCube dev could be done with Metrowerks Code Warrior for $3.5k (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/metrowerks-provides-codewarrior-for-the-gamecube/1100-2678095/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/metrowerks-provides-codewa...). And speaking of Code Warrior, in the classic MacOS days, Metrowerks Code Warrior was probably the IDE to be using. That alone was ~$500 retail in mid-90's dollars. And at that same time, Apple's own developer program was $500 or $3500 (https://web.archive.org/web/19990220171442/http://developer.apple.com/programs/chart.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990220171442/http://developer....) and even remained that expensive all the way to ~2010 when they dropped the cost to be more in line with the iPhone program (https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-drops-price-of-mac-developer-program-to-99/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-drops-price-of-mac-de...). Remember too it wasn't until 2006 that Java was released as FOSS software, (though it looks like they may have stopped charging for SE around 2000 https://www.tech-insider.org/java/research/1999/1207-b.html https://www.tech-insider.org/java/research/1999/1207-b.html) but before that, Sun also sold licenses and SDKs.

w4 3y ago

I didn't know that - appreciate the context. Ironically it drives home my point in a way I wasn't aware of. The “developers, developers, developers” moment happened near the apex of Microsoft's monopoly.

tpmoney 3y ago
Even in non-monopoly situations, the world of free, high quality, developer eco-systems is relatively new. Console SDKs have always expensive even discounting that you had to buy/lease specialized hardware. For example, GameCube dev could be done with Metrowerks Code Warrior for $3.5k (https://www.gamespot.com/articles/metrowerks-provides-codewarrior-for-the-gamecube/1100-2678095/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/metrowerks-provides-codewa...). And speaking of Code Warrior, in the classic MacOS days, Metrowerks Code Warrior was probably the IDE to be using. That alone was ~$500 retail in mid-90's dollars. And at that same time, Apple's own developer program was $500 or $3500 (https://web.archive.org/web/19990220171442/http://developer.apple.com/programs/chart.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990220171442/http://developer....) and even remained that expensive all the way to ~2010 when they dropped the cost to be more in line with the iPhone program (https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-drops-price-of-mac-developer-program-to-99/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-drops-price-of-mac-de...). Remember too it wasn't until 2006 that Java was released as FOSS software, (though it looks like they may have stopped charging for SE around 2000 https://www.tech-insider.org/java/research/1999/1207-b.html https://www.tech-insider.org/java/research/1999/1207-b.html) but before that, Sun also sold licenses and SDKs.