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Do these tactics ever work out for companies in the long term? Over my 20 years in tech, I've seen a couple cases where someone installed something they should

by donatj 11mo ago

Do these tactics ever work out for companies in the long term? Over my 20 years in tech, I've seen a couple cases where someone installed something they shouldn't have and we got threatening emails from the companies who somehow caught wind. It's always resulted on our side with a total corporate ban on using anything from that company, even things that are otherwise OK / open source. For instance at a previous company I worked, Oracle came calling for "VirtualBox Tools" trying to charge us some asinine amount because like one user had it installed and they wanted us to pay seats for the entire company. This resulted in a swift and decisive total corporate ban on VirtualBox. I've seen this at a couple companies and can't imagine we're alone in this. You're trading long-term business for short-term gains.

thayne 11mo ago
Oracle is still in business despite using these type of tactics for decades.
- TheCondor 11mo ago
  Oracle is, Rambus is still around, Qualcomm appears to be quite strong. I feel for font foundries, it's hard work to make great fonts. People want great fonts. Actually paying for them is kind of an afterthought. It sort of seems like some of the big ones should put together an MPEG like group, get all the major foundaries to join and then have a couple licensing options. Some annual fee based upon your use and application and you get to use all the fonts. If it was like $120 or less for personal use, I think I'd buy the license for the family. I suspect they'll want 10x what I think is reasonable.
- donatj 11mo ago
  Sure, but is that down to these tactics or in spite of?
- tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
  It feels like enough people know about their tactics that it must hurt their adoption. Can you imagine a YCombinator startup using Oracle?
  - TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
    The primary product of these enshitified companies is a perpetually rising stock price. Beyond a certain size it becomes more profitable to play bureaucratic, legal, financial, and other corporate games at the expense of the nominal service that's being sold. They're a bizarre economic phenomenon. They basically sell casino chips (stocks) and use bureaucracy (friction and complexity), PR (lies), and intimidation to goose their value.
  - thayne 11mo ago
    It absolutely does. I've never met anyone with a positive opinion of Oracle, and I know many companies avoid dealing with Oracle. I think this strategy only works if you have enough marketshare and vendor lock-in that customers can't easily leave and you have enough money that you can get new customers by acquiring other companies.
BrandoElFollito 11mo ago
I had this case too, in a very big company. They were very aggressive. We put a ban on their products and the company was coming back for years trying to get a business, this case was always handy to send an answer. The problem is not that they wanted us to pay for a few installations (individual decisions of some employees), but that they immediately went nuclear with legal, threatening us with the court if we do not buy an enterprise license for everyone. It pissed us off. The funny thing is that we somehow discovered their products this way and should that just said "you have a few installs of our products, wanna talk?", they would have had a great deal with much more installs

by donatj 11mo ago

thayne 11mo ago

Oracle is still in business despite using these type of tactics for decades.

TheCondor 11mo ago
Oracle is, Rambus is still around, Qualcomm appears to be quite strong. I feel for font foundries, it's hard work to make great fonts. People want great fonts. Actually paying for them is kind of an afterthought. It sort of seems like some of the big ones should put together an MPEG like group, get all the major foundaries to join and then have a couple licensing options. Some annual fee based upon your use and application and you get to use all the fonts. If it was like $120 or less for personal use, I think I'd buy the license for the family. I suspect they'll want 10x what I think is reasonable.
donatj 11mo ago
Sure, but is that down to these tactics or in spite of?
tonyedgecombe 11mo ago
It feels like enough people know about their tactics that it must hurt their adoption. Can you imagine a YCombinator startup using Oracle?
- TheOtherHobbes 11mo ago
  The primary product of these enshitified companies is a perpetually rising stock price. Beyond a certain size it becomes more profitable to play bureaucratic, legal, financial, and other corporate games at the expense of the nominal service that's being sold. They're a bizarre economic phenomenon. They basically sell casino chips (stocks) and use bureaucracy (friction and complexity), PR (lies), and intimidation to goose their value.
- thayne 11mo ago
  It absolutely does. I've never met anyone with a positive opinion of Oracle, and I know many companies avoid dealing with Oracle. I think this strategy only works if you have enough marketshare and vendor lock-in that customers can't easily leave and you have enough money that you can get new customers by acquiring other companies.

BrandoElFollito 11mo ago

I had this case too, in a very big company. They were very aggressive. We put a ban on their products and the company was coming back for years trying to get a business, this case was always handy to send an answer. The problem is not that they wanted us to pay for a few installations (individual decisions of some employees), but that they immediately went nuclear with legal, threatening us with the court if we do not buy an enterprise license for everyone. It pissed us off. The funny thing is that we somehow discovered their products this way and should that just said "you have a few installs of our products, wanna talk?", they would have had a great deal with much more installs