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It might happen the way you describe, or, if they get more popular, then may try to think harder and offer more paid options. Now they're in a growth stage - th
by benterix 2y ago
It might happen the way you describe, or, if they get more popular, then may try to think harder and offer more paid options. Now they're in a growth stage - they need to convince the largest possible number of developers they should switch from VS Code, and that is already a difficult task.
- xg15 2y agoI know, this is the standard VC playbook: First growth at all costs to get everyone into the ecosystem, then pull up the net and monetize. The latter phase is usually when all the subscriptions, value-add nag screens, data sharing agreements and other enshittification goodies pop up. And how would it work otherwise? You can't perpetually offer a product for free (in all senses of the word) AND satisfy exponential ROI expectations at the same time. If this is what's going on here, I'm worried what the "monetization" phase will entail.
- hu3 2y agoThe other option I see is being owned by a behemoth like Microsoft, in VSCode case, who can pay millions per month in engineering salaries and PaaS, while keeping it free. They are so big they can monetize it using Copilot or not even monetize it properly, just to get good faith from Developers, Developers, Developers. I like it.
- shafyy 2y agoNo, the other option is something like Sublime Text that has a small team working on it and is paid for by a very fair one-off payment by the customer.
- hu3 2y agoSounds like a third option. I have a Sublime license and I like it. But no need to discard VSCode. They are different tools anyway.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shafyy 2y agoAnd while doing this, they fuck the whole market.