11 ms·
It isn't mentioned on the homepage, but Datastar does charge for the following features: data-animate - Animates element attributes over time. data-cus
by bradly 1y ago
It isn't mentioned on the homepage, but Datastar does charge for the following features:
data-animate - Animates element attributes over time.
data-custom-validity - Adds custom validity to an element.
data-on-raf - Runs an expression on every animation frame.
data-on-resize - Runs an expression on element resize.
data-persist - Persists signals in local storage.
data-query-string - Syncs query string params with signal values.
data-replace-url - Replaces the URL in the browser.
data-scroll-into-view - Scrolls an element into view.
data-view-transition - Sets view-transition-name styles.
Prices are $299 for a solo dev and $999+ for teams
https://data-star.dev/reference/datastar_pro https://data-star.dev/reference/datastar_pro
- mbvisti 1y agonot sure i think this is a good way to fund their work BUT exploring models to make open-source sustainable for the developers does seem like a good thing, no?
- foofoo12 1y ago> exploring models This model of using deception to hide costs isn't exactly "exploring". It's tried and tested.
- mbvisti 1y agoyou're stretching the definition of deception here my guy-what do you want them to do? plaster a big sign on the landing page stating that this framework ALSO contains pro features that you have to pay for?
- porridgeraisin 1y ago> plaster a big sign Yes!! That's table stakes. It's the bare minimum needed to not be considered malice.
- sudodevnull 1y agoWhy? What is at stake?
- porridgeraisin 1y agoBasic decency of being upfront about your business model, and in general being upfront and not being deceitful in life. Anyways, constructively, they should add a usual pricing page with a nav for that at the top of the landing page. It makes it clear that something is priced, right on the landing page. In the pricing page the cards better make the costs super clear.
- hasanhaja 1y agoI'm confused. Datastar is a free open source framework that you can choose to use or not. It's weird to call them out as indecent and deceitful for not actively marketing features that they really don't think you need. Even when you think you need it, they've actively encouraged people to analyze their problems to identify if it's a real need or a gap in hypermedia fundamentals knowledge. Also, the top nav has a Pro page that has what you're looking for.
- bkmq 1y ago”Ready for liftoff?” should have a go-pro button. That’s all that is needed.
- hasanhaja 1y agoWhy have a call-to-action to something they don't want you to do? It's only there for Pro users and people who want to support the project [1] and not normal use. [1] https://data-star.dev/essays/greedy_developer https://data-star.dev/essays/greedy_developer
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- matheusmoreira 1y ago> what do you want them to do? > plaster a big sign on the landing page stating that this framework ALSO contains pro features that you have to pay for? Yes. I for one don't enjoy being on the receiving end of these marketing dark patterns and manipulation tactics.
- mbvisti 1y ago[flagged]
- skeeter2020 1y agoI've commented above that this seems like a bad approach, but it sure feels like a lack of awareness vs. an intentional dark pattern. The internet makes it so easy to assume the worst but I think this is a case where we should start with the most charitable interpretation.
- sudodevnull 1y agoDark pattern? Pro plugins are built in the same way as is accessible to any user. What's the real issue?
- bkmq 1y agoThat you have to go looking, actively, to realise there is a paid option.
- foofoo12 1y ago> what do you want them to do? The common thing to do today is put a "pricing" menu item at the top right. That'd be fine.
- bradly 1y agoI have no problem with anyone charging what they would like, but I do think it should be mentioned on the homepage. It feels intentionally left off which makes me think the developers themselves aren't 100% comfortable with the model.
- nchmy 1y agoThey're completely comfortable with and unapologetic about the model. And they're not hiding anything.
- DrewADesign 1y agoOk, so their homepage design unintentionally omits that pertinent information. I’ve wasted a couple of hours installing a FOSS package for a personal project only to find out one of the most heavily presented features was a paid add-in. Even if it’s bad communication design add not intentional, it feels like a salesey bait-and-switch tactic in that situation, and they probably want to know that.
- hasanhaja 1y agoWhich feature are you referring to?
- skeeter2020 1y agonot the OP, but a lot of the referenced functionality looks like I might use it. The problem is I'm not going to bother trying this and investing any effort with even the looming possibility I'll need to pay to keep going. I don't think too many people approach this space with a purchase evaluation mindset like say, "I'm going to test out this grid to see if we should buy it". In that case pay-for advanced functionality is part of the approach from the start. Also, I can't see this approach working. Getting enterprise adoption of a front end framework is almost impossible outside of React, let alone paying for a niche one, and the "contact us" approach is a non-starter.
- imiric 1y agoI do think this is the most sustainable approach for monetizing open source projects, as long as the developer is fair about it. That is, truly make features that only large and/or enterprise users would have a use for, and only charge for those, instead of arbitrarily deciding to put core features of the software behind a paywall. In the case of a web framework, that choice is a bit difficult. But if the software is fully functional for the large majority of users, then charging for niche features, or those that are actively discouraged, sounds like a fair approach to me.
- nchmy 1y agoThis is exactly what is done here. They're emphatic that most will/should never need the pro features.
- simonw 1y agoLooking at https://data-star.dev/reference/datastar_pro#pro-features https://data-star.dev/reference/datastar_pro#pro-features the features that stood out for me as things I would want to to use (and that don't feel particularly "pro" to me) are the animation features, data-replace-url, data-on-resize, data-scroll-into-view, the @clipboard() mechanism and, most importantly, the debugging tool. My problem with this business model is that it has a chilling effect on open source contributions to the project, because it incentivizes the core maintainers to not accept community contributions that overlap with the paid features.
- nchmy 1y agoDatastar is currently in the Release Candidate phase of v1, which they seem to be certain will be the final form of Datastar. So, they're really not looking for "community contributions" to the core of datastar, other than for feedback to polish it off. Moreover, ALL of the features are "plugins" - there's nothing stopping anyone from building and sharing their own. It is actually encouraged. In fact, in their next release they'll be releasing and documenting some sort of public API for plugins. Not sure exactly how it will differ from the current form though, since you can already make your own plugins. They also intend to have some sort of free, open-source "marketplace" for community-built web components, based on their upcoming Rocket web component and Stellar css framework. You would just need to have the Datastar pro license to be able to use any of them. I can see how this final part might be criticized, but it does seem quite fair to me. Sustainable open source is a big problem - in recent months ive had some important fully-open source dependencies disappear - even ones that were backed by well-funded companies. Moreover, Datastar is registered as a 501c3, and they really don't intend to "make money" from all of this. Its just to pay the bills, travel to conferences etc... They're very reasonable people and open to all discussion in their discord. Im sure that whatever concerns you still have could be explained quickly if you went there. In fact, i just posted there about this thread and how its overflowing with nonsensical complaints about how there's no link to or mention of Pro on the homepage - they said sure, we'll add a link.
- hasanhaja 1y agoWanted to include that this is so the development and maintenance of Datastar as a project is sustainable. And that they are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. https://data-star.dev/star_federation#nonprofit-organization https://data-star.dev/star_federation#nonprofit-organization
- nchmy 1y agoWhat a weird comment. Why bring this up unless you're just trying to make them look bad in a dishonest way? It is clearly documented on the site in multiple places. Moreover, they actively dissuade people from even buying the pro license because they are quite emphatic that most people/sites do not need any of these features. If you do need them, then it's a small price to pay for the functionality, as well as to make a modest amount to cover costs for their non-profit org. God forbid someone optionally charge something for years of effort that they have given away for free... It also comes with an immensely useful "Inspector" that shows all the signals, sse events etc, and will soon come with an immensely streamlined web component framework (Rocket) and css framework (Stellar). I bought the pro license mostly just to support them, but the inspector is great and I look forward to checking out rocket and stellar.
- xdfgh1112 1y agoI appreciated it. If I'm going to consider a framework I want to know if some of it costs money. Especially like 299usd. Frankly your response seems very hostile and makes me wants to avoid them more.
- nchmy 1y agoWhat a world we're living in - I point out that a hostile comment is hostile, and I'm labeled hostile. Once again, they aren't charging anything. Pay them if you want some largely-unnecessary features, or if you just want to support years of hard work and innovation. That's what I did. But you do you.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- speff 1y agoIf you're amenable to feedback, the impression I got from your initial comment was "a hostile comment pointing out another hostile comment". It assumed a negative motivation on OOP based on vibes and you ran with it. Even this comment's parting line: > But you do you. - seems like a truism. I get the feeling it's meant to be read as "I give up. You can keep whatever wrong viewpoint you have".
- yxhuvud 1y agoYeah, I have no idea why someone would want to consider this over turbo + stimulus
- andersmurphy 1y agoBecause turbo stimulus doesn't let you build a multiplayer spreadsheet performantly and realtime in a few hundred lines of code.
- Baguette5242 1y agoI tried Datastar and it was great, then I saw this kind of move and it turned me down immediately. I don't believe it is the right way to play. A Pro support would have been better. Plus the fact that the licensing prevent to use the Datastar Pro in any kind of open-source project. Very strange move.
- sudodevnull 1y agoThen don't buy it, you probably need it
- Terretta 1y agoSo if Mozilla had offered to monetize by asking $299 to use the <blink> and <marquee> tags that would turn you off the rest of the browser? Or do you think you could make text blink another way? Here's how you replace the URL without a page refresh: function processAjaxData(response, urlPath){ document.getElementById("content").innerHTML = response.html; document.title = response.pageTitle; window.history.pushState({"html":response.html,"pageTitle":response.pageTitle},"", urlPath); } Similar snippets for the other few and you have successfully avoided helping fund the framework!
- halfcat 1y ago> So if Mozilla had offered to monetize by asking $299 to use the <blink> and <marquee> tags that would turn you off the rest of the browser? I hadn’t thought about it, but yes. I say this as someone who paid for Netscape Navigator.
- sudodevnull 1y ago[flagged]
- mexicocitinluez 1y ago[dead]
- nchmy 1y agothe entire point is that the OP - and so many other nonsensical comments here- is implying that Datastar's devs are being sneaky, trying to trick you into getting hooked on datastar only to pull the rug later with some dark marketing patterns. But, as youve said, the info is right there on the site.
- dang 1y agoCan you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You can always make your substantive points thoughtfully, so please do that instead. Edit: two things I realized after posting the above: (1) you're the project creator! well, I can understand how anyone would react negatively given the critical things some commenters have been posting. But also (2) you've been breaking the site guidelines in other comments too (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45539942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45539942). Ultimately we need you to stick to the rules, regardless of what other commenters are doing, and of course the same applies to them also. (p.s. in case it's not clear, I'm a mod here and just trying to keep the peace a bit)
- sudodevnull 1y agohappy to abide, didn't read the guidelines so sorry about that @dang. yes it's quite interesting that we are getting slammed for making plugins in a way that literally any user has access to do own their own. hackernews is a wild ride for sure!
- davidwparker 1y agoYou should probably update your comment to at least let people know this is a one-time lifetime cost. Not a subscription. Which is priced similar to Tailwind UI, which people are fine paying for.
- andersmurphy 1y agoThose prices are for one off lifetime purchase too! That's crazy. I don't know why they bother. They'll never make back the money for the time they put in developing it. Such a bad move. I told them they should charge more and actually have useful features in pro.