4 ms·

TailScale is wonderful but they do need competition. I imagine an IPO is on the horizon, and as soon as they enter that phase, nasty price increases are sure to

by ttul 1y ago

TailScale is wonderful but they do need competition. I imagine an IPO is on the horizon, and as soon as they enter that phase, nasty price increases are sure to follow unless someone else is nipping hard at their heels.

seabrookmx 1y ago
Hopefully their tolerance to self-hosters (Headscale) doesn't change.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  The problem is, commercial services will always enshittify. It's inevitable. Even when they conquer the whole market (see Netflix) they will want to see a rising line in profits so then they will turn the thumbscrews on the customers.
  - candrewlee 1y ago
    It’s especially when they conquer the whole market. It’s why investors favor growth and adoption, even at a loss, until it’s won the market and can turn up the monetization dial.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Well, they do it anyway. All the streaming services are enshittifying, even the smaller ones. And other smaller webshops are enshittifying the same way that Amazon does. Like Cory Doctorow described, there's a few big webshops in the Netherlands like bol.com and coolblue.com and they are now also allowing third party sellers, often even from China. The webshops are absolved of all responsibility but they do cash out on every transaction.
  - sakesun 1y ago
    The term 'enshittification' sounds negative for what an organization needs to do to take care of employees.
    - loloquwowndueo 1y ago
      Sorry no. A stable organization with a good profit margin is enough to take care of employees and pay their salaries. Boundless growth which is what enshittification is associated with, is driven by money-hungry stakeholders and “investors” that demand an ever growing return on investment - they don’t settle for speed, they need constant acceleration.
      - jacobn 1y ago
        Isn’t it more of an “all of the above”? A lot of employees at successful startups & FAANG make most of their money from the stock, no? And they need to buy houses and send their kids to fancy schools too, no? So sure, we can reduce it to stock holders, but I’d bet dollars to donuts the 90% of employees who aren’t posting on hn are at least passively ok with “improving metrics”, and some ambitious ones are driving the enshittification initiatives hard.
        wkat4242 1y ago
        It's the American mentality. More, more, more. Personally I'd be much happier with a stable income with not much upward mobility but also not much risk of falling downwards. Which is what Europe is geared more towards. I don't constantly want to be in a race. Just to live my life. If they employees want it, fine but don't be surprised if we customers start finding alternatives. And/or pirating their content (e.g. when it comes to streaming services). But yeah American companies aren't there to support the employees. The only one they answer to are the owners or large shareholders (whichevery applies), and their only goal is to make those richer. Customers and employees alike are nothing but consumables, a raw resource you only treat right if you can't avoid it.
        jamwil 1y ago
        IMO the reason devs started being paid in stock in the first place is VC-style grow at all costs mentality. The fundraising economy didn’t work without fabricating compensation and only paying out on hits. No other industry operates with such a blurred distinction between employees and owners. Well, save for the gig economy, itself a tumor on American-style big tech.
- wiesbadener 1y ago
  They seem to be fine with it: "You could alternatively host your own trusted control server with Headscale."[1] [1] https://tailscale.com/blog/tailnet-lock-ga#self-hosting https://tailscale.com/blog/tailnet-lock-ga#self-hosting
  - immibis 1y ago
    They're fine with it now. They won't be, when the next potential revenue source on their list is to crack down on it. Remember, revenue must always increase, and must always increase faster than the year before (and this is more important than keeping the company alive), so companies always try increasingly desperate measures. Right now they are nowhere near the point of that particular measure. But they will be in the future.
- udev4096 1y ago
  The individual working on headscale also works for tailscale. And being quite stable and prod ready, even if they pull the plug, a community fork would still keep it alive, given majority of essential features are already there
PoachedEggs 1y ago
I’ve been meaning to explore Netbird. Fewer features at the moment, but can be fully self hosted.
- FloatArtifact 1y ago
  Their mobile android app is awful.
  - braginini 1y ago
    We have just published our android app rework for testing. Mind trying it out? Appreciate the feedback https://www.reddit.com/r/netbird/s/lRjyehCQFi https://www.reddit.com/r/netbird/s/lRjyehCQFi
wkat4242 1y ago
But there are so so many competing products already? Not all are commercial (but why would you want that anyway). But ZeroTier is another one like that. Basically the same thing.
- dahrkael 1y ago
  there is also the chinese EasyTier https://easytier.cn/en/ https://easytier.cn/en/
- nativeit 1y ago
  Yeah, I chose ZeroTier over Tailscale early on. Zero regrets, it’s nearly perfect for my use-case (remote monitoring and management of highly diverse systems and environments).
cchance 1y ago
I mean the fact headscale exists and is still in decent development, means i doubt it really is an issue, what i'd like to see is an effort for an opensource tailscale client so we could use headscale without the closed source client.
- maxboone 1y ago
  Isn't the client entirely OSS? - https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale
  - zxexz 1y ago
    IIRC it’s just the macOS GUI client that’s closed source? I are the CLI client (CLIent?) compiled from source. EDIT: yep, referenced in your link! They have a very clear page[0] describing what is and isn’t open source. [0] https://tailscale.com/opensource https://tailscale.com/opensource
dangoodmanUT 1y ago
See Nebula by slack
braginini 1y ago
There is https://netbird.io https://netbird.io
snapplebobapple 1y ago
Netbird is nipping at their heels

by ttul 1y ago

seabrookmx 1y ago

Hopefully their tolerance to self-hosters (Headscale) doesn't change.

wkat4242 1y ago
The problem is, commercial services will always enshittify. It's inevitable. Even when they conquer the whole market (see Netflix) they will want to see a rising line in profits so then they will turn the thumbscrews on the customers.
- candrewlee 1y ago
  It’s especially when they conquer the whole market. It’s why investors favor growth and adoption, even at a loss, until it’s won the market and can turn up the monetization dial.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    Well, they do it anyway. All the streaming services are enshittifying, even the smaller ones. And other smaller webshops are enshittifying the same way that Amazon does. Like Cory Doctorow described, there's a few big webshops in the Netherlands like bol.com and coolblue.com and they are now also allowing third party sellers, often even from China. The webshops are absolved of all responsibility but they do cash out on every transaction.
- sakesun 1y ago
  The term 'enshittification' sounds negative for what an organization needs to do to take care of employees.
  - loloquwowndueo 1y ago
    Sorry no. A stable organization with a good profit margin is enough to take care of employees and pay their salaries. Boundless growth which is what enshittification is associated with, is driven by money-hungry stakeholders and “investors” that demand an ever growing return on investment - they don’t settle for speed, they need constant acceleration.
    - jacobn 1y ago
      Isn’t it more of an “all of the above”? A lot of employees at successful startups & FAANG make most of their money from the stock, no? And they need to buy houses and send their kids to fancy schools too, no? So sure, we can reduce it to stock holders, but I’d bet dollars to donuts the 90% of employees who aren’t posting on hn are at least passively ok with “improving metrics”, and some ambitious ones are driving the enshittification initiatives hard.
      - wkat4242 1y ago
        It's the American mentality. More, more, more. Personally I'd be much happier with a stable income with not much upward mobility but also not much risk of falling downwards. Which is what Europe is geared more towards. I don't constantly want to be in a race. Just to live my life. If they employees want it, fine but don't be surprised if we customers start finding alternatives. And/or pirating their content (e.g. when it comes to streaming services). But yeah American companies aren't there to support the employees. The only one they answer to are the owners or large shareholders (whichevery applies), and their only goal is to make those richer. Customers and employees alike are nothing but consumables, a raw resource you only treat right if you can't avoid it.
      - jamwil 1y ago
        IMO the reason devs started being paid in stock in the first place is VC-style grow at all costs mentality. The fundraising economy didn’t work without fabricating compensation and only paying out on hits. No other industry operates with such a blurred distinction between employees and owners. Well, save for the gig economy, itself a tumor on American-style big tech.
wiesbadener 1y ago
They seem to be fine with it: "You could alternatively host your own trusted control server with Headscale."[1] [1] https://tailscale.com/blog/tailnet-lock-ga#self-hosting https://tailscale.com/blog/tailnet-lock-ga#self-hosting
- immibis 1y ago
  They're fine with it now. They won't be, when the next potential revenue source on their list is to crack down on it. Remember, revenue must always increase, and must always increase faster than the year before (and this is more important than keeping the company alive), so companies always try increasingly desperate measures. Right now they are nowhere near the point of that particular measure. But they will be in the future.
udev4096 1y ago
The individual working on headscale also works for tailscale. And being quite stable and prod ready, even if they pull the plug, a community fork would still keep it alive, given majority of essential features are already there

PoachedEggs 1y ago

I’ve been meaning to explore Netbird. Fewer features at the moment, but can be fully self hosted.

FloatArtifact 1y ago
Their mobile android app is awful.
- braginini 1y ago
  We have just published our android app rework for testing. Mind trying it out? Appreciate the feedback https://www.reddit.com/r/netbird/s/lRjyehCQFi https://www.reddit.com/r/netbird/s/lRjyehCQFi

wkat4242 1y ago

But there are so so many competing products already? Not all are commercial (but why would you want that anyway). But ZeroTier is another one like that. Basically the same thing.

dahrkael 1y ago
there is also the chinese EasyTier https://easytier.cn/en/ https://easytier.cn/en/
nativeit 1y ago
Yeah, I chose ZeroTier over Tailscale early on. Zero regrets, it’s nearly perfect for my use-case (remote monitoring and management of highly diverse systems and environments).

cchance 1y ago

I mean the fact headscale exists and is still in decent development, means i doubt it really is an issue, what i'd like to see is an effort for an opensource tailscale client so we could use headscale without the closed source client.

maxboone 1y ago
Isn't the client entirely OSS? - https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale
- zxexz 1y ago
  IIRC it’s just the macOS GUI client that’s closed source? I are the CLI client (CLIent?) compiled from source. EDIT: yep, referenced in your link! They have a very clear page[0] describing what is and isn’t open source. [0] https://tailscale.com/opensource https://tailscale.com/opensource

dangoodmanUT 1y ago

See Nebula by slack

braginini 1y ago

There is https://netbird.io https://netbird.io

snapplebobapple 1y ago

Netbird is nipping at their heels