7 ms·

In 1998 we wouldn't of complained - at least me. It is 2012, and when I purchase software, I don't buy into the premise that this software is going to be stati

by antr 14y ago

In 1998 we wouldn't of complained - at least me. It is 2012, and when I purchase software, I don't buy into the premise that this software is going to be static for perpetuity, and this is because of the fast-paced nature of OS, platform and web evolution. I "marry" the software I love, and I am very happy to pay for upgrades. I upgrade my Mac the day after a new OS X version is released, not only that, but I use non-large company software every day for years: Panic, Bjango, Made@Gloria, etc. When I buy software, I don't only buy into the software I get, but I support it because I think it has a bright and better future. If I knew the developer was to stop development going forward, I would simply not support it. Going forward, if I find that a small/medium developer has received capital from an angel or VC, I am going to stay away from it (I already decided not to use Foursquare, Path, Highlight, Kik and many other mobile apps for this reason) - the investor will have the need to flip the company, whatever the outcome for the software is.

jseliger 14y ago
I upgrade my Mac the day after a new OS X version is released I used to do that—until I realized that 10.7 (and now probably 10.8) don't offer any substantial improvements to things I care about (as discussed here: https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/mac-os-10-7-is-out-today-and-i-dont-care-because-in-the-beginning-was-the-command-line/ https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/mac-os-10-7-is-out...). In other words, I've probably reached "peak operating system," in that marginal improvements to OSes are really quite marginal. That's also true, at least for me, of a program like Word. Have we really seen substantial improvements since, say, 2002? Maybe in stability, but not much else. I'm not arguing that software itself isn't improving—a lot of software has a huge amount of search space left. But some doesn't, and we get diminishing marginal returns. Maybe I'll upgrade to 10.8 or its successor—Textmate 2.0 or iMovie 12 could be the inciting factors—but there's a solid chance I won't.
- eropple 14y ago
  YMMV, but I find Mission Control to be absolutely invaluable in Lion (and I was a huge Spaces fan - removing it for Mission Control was one of my biggest apprehensions). It was worth $30 (amortized across all my Macs) to me, easily. I don't buy that we've reached "peak operating system", though I would say that in the Microsoft ecosystem they may have reached "peak Windows" with Windows 7.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Problem is, what happens when they stop supporting the version that you are using and happy with? Would you feel confident going online with an OS that has known security issues that will never be patched?
  - Nicole060 14y ago
    Using an outdated OS that is not supported anymore isn't good security, but in theory there shouldn't be much danger as long as you follow some basic restrictions : 1/ Put the computer behind a NAT router with no open ports/outside access 2/ Use a browser that hasn't dropped your platform (just because the OS isn't supported anymore doesn't mean you can't find at least one browser that's up to date with continuous security updates. There are still people porting Firefox to PPC macs, an initiative called "TenFourFox". You can also try Camino or iCab, two alternative browsers that have kept PPC compatibility) 3/ Don't open an email attachment unless it has been scanned through an antivirus Point 1 and 3 are something I do even on a patched computer anyway. Your desktop shouldn't be directly exposed to the internet. I've never ran an outdated OS myself but I would feel confident in using one as long as I respect those principles. The one thing I wouldn't be confident in doing, though, would be running an outdated browser or an outdated mail client. Security updates for anything that is in direct contact with the internet is a top priority and using an abandoned mail client like sparrow that doesn't guarantee security updates is a terrible, terrible idea.
- minikites 14y ago
  I personally hit that point when 10.4 rolled around.
hboon 14y ago
Have you stopped using GitHub, if you were a user?
- neutronicus 14y ago
  Why would I? I'll just go to push my local changes to it one day, and it'll be gone, and I'll still have the entire history of my project.
- antr 14y ago
  stop != pay != contribute
- nirvana 14y ago
  I think github would be the exception that proves the rule, because the github investment isn't a typical "Venture" investment- it was much closer to a late stage hedge, or hedge fund investment. This was a company that was profitably growing like crazy and thus could effectively dictate terms. Whatever A16H's exit expectations are here, I'm pretty sure they are rather long term, and on the order of "github goes public" rather than "github is shut down after an aquihire." Yesterday I was watching a presentation where Steve Blank said that the pyramid has shifted-- the big VCs have replaced IPOs and private equity, and everyone has moved up the stack. (So now instead of needing VCs for your first investment, for instance, there's accelerators like YC, then angels, then super angels.)
  - hboon 14y ago
    > Yesterday I was watching a presentation where Steve Blank said that the pyramid has shifted-- the big VCs have replaced IPOs and private equity, and everyone has moved up the stack. (So now instead of needing VCs for your first investment, for instance, there's accelerators like YC, then angels, then super angels.) I agree. An additional value which VCs provide that hasn't been eroded that much is credibility to enterprises. It's a good guess that Github took the investment so they appear more credible to enterprises, i.e. they are going after Perforce and ClearCase
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
nirvana 14y ago
FWIW, I was an early employee at a startup that was acquired around 1998 for around this amount of money. In those days this wasn't considered an "acquihire" but a "successful exit" or a "base hit". (e.g.: not a failure but not the success that pays for all the other companies in the VC firms cohort that year.) The VCs got about 5X on their money and because of liquidation preferences and other shenanigans, I, and the other employees, pretty much got screwed.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  What about the users of your software?
  - nirvana 14y ago
    They still complain about its loss... in the years since it has never been replaced. As an employee, I had no choice in the decision.
ChemicalHarm 14y ago
> When I buy software, I don't only buy into the software I get, but I support it because I think it has a bright and better future. Eric S Raymond made this point in "The Manufacturing Delusion" (http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/magic-cauldron/ar01s03.html http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/magic-cauldron...). The value of software to a user lies more in the expected future value of updates than in the immediate value of using the software. This is true regardless of whether you pay for the software up front, and regardless of whether you expect to pay for the updates. I would add this: the cost to a user of software is also much more than its price. To use software means investing time and effort into it, regardless of whether you paid any money for it. Then, as time goes on, you come to rely on the software's presence--you build your habits around the assumption that it is available, and bear the risk of disruption if it suddenly isn't. These hidden, non-monetary costs can be far larger than the monetary price paid, if any. The problem is that the implicit non-monetary costs on the user side do not represent any benefits for the developer. That the user invested time and took risk doesn't give the developer anything--they only gain the explicit monetary price. But the implicit future benefits expected by the user DO translate directly into future costs for the developer--just as much as the present benefit corresponds to past developer costs! So there is a big mismatch between what people intuitively feel they are exchanging. On the developer side, Matt Gemmell's comment quoted in the article feels right: "you paid, you got software." But on the user side, the story feels like "I spent time and wrapped my habits around this software, in expectation of its continued improvement, then found out to my surprise that no improvement is coming." That said, I don't have any new shiny ideas on how to solve this problem. In the end, I agree that the developers of Sparrow owe the users nothing. But I also see why the users are reacting as if somebody took something away from them that they thought they had.

by antr 14y ago

jseliger 14y ago

I upgrade my Mac the day after a new OS X version is released I used to do that—until I realized that 10.7 (and now probably 10.8) don't offer any substantial improvements to things I care about (as discussed here: https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/mac-os-10-7-is-out-today-and-i-dont-care-because-in-the-beginning-was-the-command-line/ https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/mac-os-10-7-is-out...). In other words, I've probably reached "peak operating system," in that marginal improvements to OSes are really quite marginal. That's also true, at least for me, of a program like Word. Have we really seen substantial improvements since, say, 2002? Maybe in stability, but not much else. I'm not arguing that software itself isn't improving—a lot of software has a huge amount of search space left. But some doesn't, and we get diminishing marginal returns. Maybe I'll upgrade to 10.8 or its successor—Textmate 2.0 or iMovie 12 could be the inciting factors—but there's a solid chance I won't.

eropple 14y ago
YMMV, but I find Mission Control to be absolutely invaluable in Lion (and I was a huge Spaces fan - removing it for Mission Control was one of my biggest apprehensions). It was worth $30 (amortized across all my Macs) to me, easily. I don't buy that we've reached "peak operating system", though I would say that in the Microsoft ecosystem they may have reached "peak Windows" with Windows 7.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Problem is, what happens when they stop supporting the version that you are using and happy with? Would you feel confident going online with an OS that has known security issues that will never be patched?
- Nicole060 14y ago
  Using an outdated OS that is not supported anymore isn't good security, but in theory there shouldn't be much danger as long as you follow some basic restrictions : 1/ Put the computer behind a NAT router with no open ports/outside access 2/ Use a browser that hasn't dropped your platform (just because the OS isn't supported anymore doesn't mean you can't find at least one browser that's up to date with continuous security updates. There are still people porting Firefox to PPC macs, an initiative called "TenFourFox". You can also try Camino or iCab, two alternative browsers that have kept PPC compatibility) 3/ Don't open an email attachment unless it has been scanned through an antivirus Point 1 and 3 are something I do even on a patched computer anyway. Your desktop shouldn't be directly exposed to the internet. I've never ran an outdated OS myself but I would feel confident in using one as long as I respect those principles. The one thing I wouldn't be confident in doing, though, would be running an outdated browser or an outdated mail client. Security updates for anything that is in direct contact with the internet is a top priority and using an abandoned mail client like sparrow that doesn't guarantee security updates is a terrible, terrible idea.
minikites 14y ago
I personally hit that point when 10.4 rolled around.

hboon 14y ago

Have you stopped using GitHub, if you were a user?

neutronicus 14y ago
Why would I? I'll just go to push my local changes to it one day, and it'll be gone, and I'll still have the entire history of my project.
antr 14y ago
stop != pay != contribute
nirvana 14y ago
I think github would be the exception that proves the rule, because the github investment isn't a typical "Venture" investment- it was much closer to a late stage hedge, or hedge fund investment. This was a company that was profitably growing like crazy and thus could effectively dictate terms. Whatever A16H's exit expectations are here, I'm pretty sure they are rather long term, and on the order of "github goes public" rather than "github is shut down after an aquihire." Yesterday I was watching a presentation where Steve Blank said that the pyramid has shifted-- the big VCs have replaced IPOs and private equity, and everyone has moved up the stack. (So now instead of needing VCs for your first investment, for instance, there's accelerators like YC, then angels, then super angels.)
- hboon 14y ago
  > Yesterday I was watching a presentation where Steve Blank said that the pyramid has shifted-- the big VCs have replaced IPOs and private equity, and everyone has moved up the stack. (So now instead of needing VCs for your first investment, for instance, there's accelerators like YC, then angels, then super angels.) I agree. An additional value which VCs provide that hasn't been eroded that much is credibility to enterprises. It's a good guess that Github took the investment so they appear more credible to enterprises, i.e. they are going after Perforce and ClearCase
- jiggy2011 14y ago

nirvana 14y ago

FWIW, I was an early employee at a startup that was acquired around 1998 for around this amount of money. In those days this wasn't considered an "acquihire" but a "successful exit" or a "base hit". (e.g.: not a failure but not the success that pays for all the other companies in the VC firms cohort that year.) The VCs got about 5X on their money and because of liquidation preferences and other shenanigans, I, and the other employees, pretty much got screwed.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
What about the users of your software?
- nirvana 14y ago
  They still complain about its loss... in the years since it has never been replaced. As an employee, I had no choice in the decision.

ChemicalHarm 14y ago

> When I buy software, I don't only buy into the software I get, but I support it because I think it has a bright and better future. Eric S Raymond made this point in "The Manufacturing Delusion" (http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/magic-cauldron/ar01s03.html http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/magic-cauldron...). The value of software to a user lies more in the expected future value of updates than in the immediate value of using the software. This is true regardless of whether you pay for the software up front, and regardless of whether you expect to pay for the updates. I would add this: the cost to a user of software is also much more than its price. To use software means investing time and effort into it, regardless of whether you paid any money for it. Then, as time goes on, you come to rely on the software's presence--you build your habits around the assumption that it is available, and bear the risk of disruption if it suddenly isn't. These hidden, non-monetary costs can be far larger than the monetary price paid, if any. The problem is that the implicit non-monetary costs on the user side do not represent any benefits for the developer. That the user invested time and took risk doesn't give the developer anything--they only gain the explicit monetary price. But the implicit future benefits expected by the user DO translate directly into future costs for the developer--just as much as the present benefit corresponds to past developer costs! So there is a big mismatch between what people intuitively feel they are exchanging. On the developer side, Matt Gemmell's comment quoted in the article feels right: "you paid, you got software." But on the user side, the story feels like "I spent time and wrapped my habits around this software, in expectation of its continued improvement, then found out to my surprise that no improvement is coming." That said, I don't have any new shiny ideas on how to solve this problem. In the end, I agree that the developers of Sparrow owe the users nothing. But I also see why the users are reacting as if somebody took something away from them that they thought they had.