4 ms·

Is it me, or does $600,000 a year (presuming that $3M is over the 5 year period) seem a bit of a weak contribution from a company with a $1.8 trillion market ca

Is it me, or does $600,000 a year (presuming that $3M is over the 5 year period) seem a bit of a weak contribution from a company with a $1.8 trillion market cap that's regularly making $100M-$250M TC pay packages for AI scientists? Like, I get that nothing is _owed_ here, but this feels like more of the same tragedy of the commons open source problem we see: tools that millions of apps depend on, barely propped up, and in this case, the child of a megacorporation that could easily create a proper evergreen endowment rather than a milquetoast token contribution to save face. Or should we just be grateful?

physicsguy 1y ago
How do you value what they already put into it?
- esperent 1y ago
  Let's round their yearly revenue at around $160 billion, then assume they've spent $3 million a year on React. That would put the cost at 0.002% of revenue, or to put it another way, if they dedicated just 1% of revenue to philanthropy, they could fund 500 React sized projects indefinitely.
  - flowerlad 1y ago
    Zuckerberg doesn’t have a good track record with philanthropy https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/tech/chan-zuckerberg-primary-school-closing https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/tech/chan-zuckerberg-primary-...
    - throw-10-8 1y ago
      Didn't Meta donate $1m to Trumps bribery fund?
  - motoxpro 1y ago
    Spending 1% of revenue on developer tooling would be insane. Spending 100% of a philanthropy budget on developer tooling would be even MORE insane.
nicce 1y ago
I guess Vercel does the most lifting in non-native React these days? Didn’t they hire the core developers?
- fcanesin 1y ago
  this, Vercel is at ~10B valuation with a business built atop React - they should and will probably take more of Meta space as stewards for it.
  - BoorishBears 1y ago
    Please no. They don't have the best interests of React in mind. They threw the resources behind RSC to make React, a framework for frontend reactivity, force opt-in for frontend reactivity. Meta is needed more than ever at this point, before React fully becomes a framework for burning compute on Vercel's infra.
    - karimf 1y ago
      I agree with this. I’d prefer to have Meta be the steward for React instead of Vercel because Meta does not have a conflict of interest.
      - mdhb 1y ago
        They might not have the conflict of interest but they also don’t have the business interest either. Meta is a spyware company who makes all of their money from collecting personal data to sell to advertisers. They have zero incentive to dedicate any kind of significant resources to supporting millions of websites using their internal UI library.
    - Rapzid 1y ago
      Because Vercel makes money when components are rendered server side not client side. I know almost nobody that even uses server side components. It's right out if your backend isn't node..
  - 1y ago
philipwhiuk 1y ago
> dedicated engineering support is probably worth more in practice. The $3m will basically just cover 'founding the foundation' I guess. I do wonder whether this is a sign Facebook may no longer develop new stuff in React.
- disillusioned 1y ago
  I do think I read that as being _part_ of the $3M, not in _addition_ to, which absolutely increases the overall value of the contribution, likely materially.
gampleman 1y ago
They also have a team of full time react devs they are paying for. That seems to me more than sufficient. $600,000/year just to run a governance board and organize a conference seems extraordinarily generous to me. In fact I think it's more likely the $3M is more likely to form an endowment for the foundation that will fund it's expenses running forward.
- flowerlad 1y ago
  > They also have a team of full time react devs they are paying for. For now. My guess is they will be included in the next round of layoffs. Money for $100 Million pay packages for AI researchers has to come from somewhere!
mythz 1y ago
I don't understand the entitlement here? Somehow because Meta has released a popular OSS library and dedicated over 10 years of engineering resources to it (that has generated immense value for the wider ecosystem), that they should've shelled out more than the $3M they're contributing in order to give its ownership away to a non-profit. Maybe it's just me but I think they've contributed more than enough. I'm grateful for what they've already contributed and anything else they choose to contribute in future.
- wslh 1y ago
  I think once the React community engine is working you need less budget because of third-party contributions.
- 1dom 1y ago
  You're right, $3million is a lot for an open source project, with no other context. But in the context of who that $3million is coming from, how much they have available, how much responsibility they have for the state of it, and how much value it provides to everyone who isn't them, I think it's fair some people might have expected a little more.
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    But why? If this went the other way where say FaceBook let people freely create accounts and talk to everybody and then later on either charged 10$/month, plastered the site with ads, or started to selling user data people would be upset about a bait and switch. If you release something for free as you shouldn't be expected compensation for it. People also shouldn't expect anything beyond the terms that you've released it underneath as well.
    - cap11235 1y ago
      Right! As long as the license is obeyed, who are you to complain? If the original developer has a problem with the results of something like the MIT License, well, they chose that, and licensing choices are very extensively documented in news. Pro-tip: LICENSE files are just text! you can edit them. The license is the license, and if someone fucks that up, well, they fucked up. Don't want Amazon to use your lib? Just say that. I have very little pity for those that complain about this sort of thing. "Gratitude" has little legal standing, and expecting a corporation to be ethical is absurd as apologizing to your tapeworm. If you really want a non-corporate license, there is always Baba Yaga, which no corporation's lawyers will want to touch. https://smallandnearlysilent.com/baba-yaga/LICENSE.txt https://smallandnearlysilent.com/baba-yaga/LICENSE.txt
rs186 1y ago
Most open source projects receive $0 a year from companies that use them.
theknarf 1y ago
The post said they would also still pay for their own internal team that would keep contributing code to React, so it feels more like their throwing in $600k in addition to what they already do. And they have brought inn other companies who hopefully also contribute money, seems like a lot more of an healthy situation than before.
nothrowaways 1y ago
Multiply this by the number of multi billion mc companies that are built on it
nothrowaways 1y ago
Multiply this by the number of multi billion mc companies that are built with it

physicsguy 1y ago

How do you value what they already put into it?

esperent 1y ago
Let's round their yearly revenue at around $160 billion, then assume they've spent $3 million a year on React. That would put the cost at 0.002% of revenue, or to put it another way, if they dedicated just 1% of revenue to philanthropy, they could fund 500 React sized projects indefinitely.
- flowerlad 1y ago
  Zuckerberg doesn’t have a good track record with philanthropy https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/tech/chan-zuckerberg-primary-school-closing https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/25/tech/chan-zuckerberg-primary-...
  - throw-10-8 1y ago
    Didn't Meta donate $1m to Trumps bribery fund?
- motoxpro 1y ago
  Spending 1% of revenue on developer tooling would be insane. Spending 100% of a philanthropy budget on developer tooling would be even MORE insane.

nicce 1y ago

I guess Vercel does the most lifting in non-native React these days? Didn’t they hire the core developers?

fcanesin 1y ago
this, Vercel is at ~10B valuation with a business built atop React - they should and will probably take more of Meta space as stewards for it.
- BoorishBears 1y ago
  Please no. They don't have the best interests of React in mind. They threw the resources behind RSC to make React, a framework for frontend reactivity, force opt-in for frontend reactivity. Meta is needed more than ever at this point, before React fully becomes a framework for burning compute on Vercel's infra.
  - karimf 1y ago
    I agree with this. I’d prefer to have Meta be the steward for React instead of Vercel because Meta does not have a conflict of interest.
    - mdhb 1y ago
      They might not have the conflict of interest but they also don’t have the business interest either. Meta is a spyware company who makes all of their money from collecting personal data to sell to advertisers. They have zero incentive to dedicate any kind of significant resources to supporting millions of websites using their internal UI library.
  - Rapzid 1y ago
    Because Vercel makes money when components are rendered server side not client side. I know almost nobody that even uses server side components. It's right out if your backend isn't node..
- 1y ago

philipwhiuk 1y ago

> dedicated engineering support is probably worth more in practice. The $3m will basically just cover 'founding the foundation' I guess. I do wonder whether this is a sign Facebook may no longer develop new stuff in React.

disillusioned 1y ago
I do think I read that as being _part_ of the $3M, not in _addition_ to, which absolutely increases the overall value of the contribution, likely materially.

gampleman 1y ago

They also have a team of full time react devs they are paying for. That seems to me more than sufficient. $600,000/year just to run a governance board and organize a conference seems extraordinarily generous to me. In fact I think it's more likely the $3M is more likely to form an endowment for the foundation that will fund it's expenses running forward.

flowerlad 1y ago
> They also have a team of full time react devs they are paying for. For now. My guess is they will be included in the next round of layoffs. Money for $100 Million pay packages for AI researchers has to come from somewhere!

mythz 1y ago

I don't understand the entitlement here? Somehow because Meta has released a popular OSS library and dedicated over 10 years of engineering resources to it (that has generated immense value for the wider ecosystem), that they should've shelled out more than the $3M they're contributing in order to give its ownership away to a non-profit. Maybe it's just me but I think they've contributed more than enough. I'm grateful for what they've already contributed and anything else they choose to contribute in future.

wslh 1y ago
I think once the React community engine is working you need less budget because of third-party contributions.
1dom 1y ago
You're right, $3million is a lot for an open source project, with no other context. But in the context of who that $3million is coming from, how much they have available, how much responsibility they have for the state of it, and how much value it provides to everyone who isn't them, I think it's fair some people might have expected a little more.
- lesuorac 1y ago
  But why? If this went the other way where say FaceBook let people freely create accounts and talk to everybody and then later on either charged 10$/month, plastered the site with ads, or started to selling user data people would be upset about a bait and switch. If you release something for free as you shouldn't be expected compensation for it. People also shouldn't expect anything beyond the terms that you've released it underneath as well.
  - cap11235 1y ago
    Right! As long as the license is obeyed, who are you to complain? If the original developer has a problem with the results of something like the MIT License, well, they chose that, and licensing choices are very extensively documented in news. Pro-tip: LICENSE files are just text! you can edit them. The license is the license, and if someone fucks that up, well, they fucked up. Don't want Amazon to use your lib? Just say that. I have very little pity for those that complain about this sort of thing. "Gratitude" has little legal standing, and expecting a corporation to be ethical is absurd as apologizing to your tapeworm. If you really want a non-corporate license, there is always Baba Yaga, which no corporation's lawyers will want to touch. https://smallandnearlysilent.com/baba-yaga/LICENSE.txt https://smallandnearlysilent.com/baba-yaga/LICENSE.txt

rs186 1y ago

Most open source projects receive $0 a year from companies that use them.

theknarf 1y ago

The post said they would also still pay for their own internal team that would keep contributing code to React, so it feels more like their throwing in $600k in addition to what they already do. And they have brought inn other companies who hopefully also contribute money, seems like a lot more of an healthy situation than before.

nothrowaways 1y ago

Multiply this by the number of multi billion mc companies that are built on it

nothrowaways 1y ago

Multiply this by the number of multi billion mc companies that are built with it