4 ms·

> In terms of monetization, the goal is to just have a hosted queue system. I believe this can be cheaper than SQS without sacrificing performance. Just as Back

> In terms of monetization, the goal is to just have a hosted queue system. I believe this can be cheaper than SQS without sacrificing performance. Just as Backblaze and Minio have had success competing in the S3 space, I wanted to take a crack at queues. are you monetizing this as a separate business from: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/scratch-data https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/scratch-data

memset 2y ago
Truthfully, I don't know yet - I haven't even built a paid/hosted version at all. It is related to my existing business in the sense that it deals with realtime data. But I started working this as something I wish existed as opposed to having some big VC strategy and pitch deck behind it. (Also, I appreciate all of your feedback on this a month ago! It was really helpful to encourage me to keep looking into this and also figuring out the "first" things to launch with!)
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  Not every open source project needs to be monetized. Projects that were created to "scratch one's itch" tend to fare better than those built to make money. Devs put more love and less stress into them than into things they want to build a business out of. The monetization paragraph reads really weird, as if you believe HN is a community of VC-adjacent people looking for new ways to make money (it isn't), and talking about how you plan to exploit your new project is mandatory (it isn't either).
  - throwaway984393 2y ago
    [dead]
  - fragmede 2y ago
    > HN is a community of VC-adjacent people looking for new ways to make money it kinda is. There are all sorts of people here, but HN is owned by YC, a well known VC fund. That doesn't mean that everyone here is one, but it certainly influences the community here. > and talking about how you plan to exploit your new project is mandatory it's not mandatory but it's a frequently asked question. OP might as well answer it while they have the mic.
  - pc86 2y ago
    There are plenty of people here not interested in the VC space, not interested in startups (in the pg sense of the word), and not strictly looking for new ways to wake money. But it's run by a VC firm. It's primary purpose is one part of a large funnel for getting new applicants to that VC firm. It is by definition VC-adjacent, and by extension many or perhaps even most people on here, certainly most of the people posting and commenting a lot, will be somewhat in that market as well. You can ignore that if you want at no risk to yourself but just declaring "it isn't" as objective incontrovertible fact is kind of silly when at the very least it's up for debate. But honestly whatever HN is or is not is a pretty irrelevant point to argue. What isn't irrelevant, I think, is the accusation that monetizing something you've worked on is somehow exploiting it. If this brings value to people, and they can make money using it, or make more money using, the OP deserves to charge them for it if they want to. There's nothing wrong or exploitative about that. You are free to donate all your time and not charge anyone for anything but it's silly to frame someone charging for their work as an exploitation of either that thing or the people paying for it.
  - samatman 2y ago
    > Not every open source project needs to be monetized. Where was this claim made? I missed it. > Projects that were created to "scratch one's itch" tend to fare better than those built to make money. Devs put more love and less stress into them than into things they want to build a business out of. This project is based on SQLite, which is several people's livelihood. As a result, it's rock-solid, reliable, and available to all without fee or restriction. So it's an odd choice of project to choose to express this sort of eminently debatable sentiment.
Onavo 2y ago
What's the point of AGPL though? The enterprises with the budget for self hosting this sort of software usually have requirements and scale beyond what SQLite can offer out of the box.
- jerrygenser 2y ago
  He's going to make backends pluggable. So other more scalable backends than sqlite could work
  - memset 2y ago
    In practice, I don’t plan on adding an entire proprietary layer - that is just way too much work, and it defeats the purpose. If the open source code has bad performance, why would someone even bother with a hosted version? Like, I want people to be so impressed by the open source code that they’d trust a cloud version to be even better. Clickhouse and duckdb do this very well. The main difference I expect with a hosted solution are things like multiple tenants or billing integrations. These aren’t core to the product and only necessary when you need to host someone else’s data.
- andrewstuart 2y ago
  Ugh I didn't see that. My enthusiasm has instantly waned. Why is AGPL needed? Just be MIT and make it easy for people, espefcially if you're not planning on monetising it. I won't use AGPL code just on principle.
  - ctippett 2y ago
    Why? Does AGPL really matter if you're not planning on monetising whatever it is you're using it for? Not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious why you'd be so vehemently opposed to it.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      I think the crux of the argument is that if you are not planning to monetize it, why stop other people from doing so?

memset 2y ago

Truthfully, I don't know yet - I haven't even built a paid/hosted version at all. It is related to my existing business in the sense that it deals with realtime data. But I started working this as something I wish existed as opposed to having some big VC strategy and pitch deck behind it. (Also, I appreciate all of your feedback on this a month ago! It was really helpful to encourage me to keep looking into this and also figuring out the "first" things to launch with!)

Kwpolska 2y ago
Not every open source project needs to be monetized. Projects that were created to "scratch one's itch" tend to fare better than those built to make money. Devs put more love and less stress into them than into things they want to build a business out of. The monetization paragraph reads really weird, as if you believe HN is a community of VC-adjacent people looking for new ways to make money (it isn't), and talking about how you plan to exploit your new project is mandatory (it isn't either).
- throwaway984393 2y ago
  [dead]
- fragmede 2y ago
  > HN is a community of VC-adjacent people looking for new ways to make money it kinda is. There are all sorts of people here, but HN is owned by YC, a well known VC fund. That doesn't mean that everyone here is one, but it certainly influences the community here. > and talking about how you plan to exploit your new project is mandatory it's not mandatory but it's a frequently asked question. OP might as well answer it while they have the mic.
- pc86 2y ago
  There are plenty of people here not interested in the VC space, not interested in startups (in the pg sense of the word), and not strictly looking for new ways to wake money. But it's run by a VC firm. It's primary purpose is one part of a large funnel for getting new applicants to that VC firm. It is by definition VC-adjacent, and by extension many or perhaps even most people on here, certainly most of the people posting and commenting a lot, will be somewhat in that market as well. You can ignore that if you want at no risk to yourself but just declaring "it isn't" as objective incontrovertible fact is kind of silly when at the very least it's up for debate. But honestly whatever HN is or is not is a pretty irrelevant point to argue. What isn't irrelevant, I think, is the accusation that monetizing something you've worked on is somehow exploiting it. If this brings value to people, and they can make money using it, or make more money using, the OP deserves to charge them for it if they want to. There's nothing wrong or exploitative about that. You are free to donate all your time and not charge anyone for anything but it's silly to frame someone charging for their work as an exploitation of either that thing or the people paying for it.
- samatman 2y ago
  > Not every open source project needs to be monetized. Where was this claim made? I missed it. > Projects that were created to "scratch one's itch" tend to fare better than those built to make money. Devs put more love and less stress into them than into things they want to build a business out of. This project is based on SQLite, which is several people's livelihood. As a result, it's rock-solid, reliable, and available to all without fee or restriction. So it's an odd choice of project to choose to express this sort of eminently debatable sentiment.

Onavo 2y ago

What's the point of AGPL though? The enterprises with the budget for self hosting this sort of software usually have requirements and scale beyond what SQLite can offer out of the box.

jerrygenser 2y ago
He's going to make backends pluggable. So other more scalable backends than sqlite could work
- memset 2y ago
  In practice, I don’t plan on adding an entire proprietary layer - that is just way too much work, and it defeats the purpose. If the open source code has bad performance, why would someone even bother with a hosted version? Like, I want people to be so impressed by the open source code that they’d trust a cloud version to be even better. Clickhouse and duckdb do this very well. The main difference I expect with a hosted solution are things like multiple tenants or billing integrations. These aren’t core to the product and only necessary when you need to host someone else’s data.
andrewstuart 2y ago
Ugh I didn't see that. My enthusiasm has instantly waned. Why is AGPL needed? Just be MIT and make it easy for people, espefcially if you're not planning on monetising it. I won't use AGPL code just on principle.
- ctippett 2y ago
  Why? Does AGPL really matter if you're not planning on monetising whatever it is you're using it for? Not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious why you'd be so vehemently opposed to it.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I think the crux of the argument is that if you are not planning to monetize it, why stop other people from doing so?