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What better way to destroy the enterprise, as you put it, than taking their money. And it's less about 'catering to the enterprise', and more about doing busin

What better way to destroy the enterprise, as you put it, than taking their money. And it's less about 'catering to the enterprise', and more about doing business on your own terms. >>Yeah, I'm the guy who would rather go through the trouble of installing/maintaining my own GitLab server than paying a dime to Github/Bitbucket. Then please note you're not really suited to participate in a discussion about optimally pricing SaaS to businesses. It will be painful for you, and the people involved. >>it amazed me how it works only as a way to push Patrick's agenda, but none of Colin's. Patrick and Colin are friends. Patrick wrote this post to help a friend. Patrick's agenda is Colin's success. >>there is nothing Patrick has done to actively improve things Patrick has spent hours thinking about and distilling his thinking into a blog post, designed to help Colin. Patrick is regularly paid Large Sums of Money for his experience and capability in this exact, specific area. What should Patrick have done? Fly from Japan to where Colin lives, push him aside, and implement all the work he suggested, against Colin's will?

rglullis 13y ago
Oh, come on. "Taking their money" would never destroy them. As Patrick loves to say, this is peanuts to most company budgets. Also, by focusing on enterprise needs instead of normal folk, you end up with an offering that is designed for the enterprise, which automatically pushes out the smaller fish. > Patrick's agenda is Colin's success. Sorry, but this is bullshit. Read the blog post again. I would doubt very much that Colin feels like Tarsnap is a failure of some kind - quite the opposite. Patrick's agenda is keeping the idea that what he does is worth "Large Sums of Money". This might work with the marketing people, but it disappoints me to no end to see this becoming the prevailing view of "Hacker News". > What should Patrick have done? A much shorter blog post: "Do you know Tarsnap? It's this amazing backup solution, created and run by Colin Percival. I wished I could tell everyone to use, but I understand that most people get put off by it's lack of marketing polish. This is understandable if you know that Colin is a genius who (like most other geniuses) do not realize how things that seem simple to him might be harder for the common folk. I am not such a genius, so I can not contribute to tarsnap itself. But I can contribute to ancillary things that Colin is too smart to even bother doing. So I put together this website (http://link_to_repo http://link_to_repo) and also this wiki (http://link_to_wiki http://link_to_wiki) where people can discuss things and/or come together to improve the product in ways they think it's relevant. This way we can have Colin doing the things he is already happy doing at a such an affordable price, we can get rid of these small annoyances and get to have more arguments to convince Grandma to use Tarsnap. Most importantly, everyone can be sure that Tarsnap will be around for a much longer time. " Now, this would be pushing Colin's agenda. This would be allowing Colin to do business on his own terms. Patrick's post just reads as a self-marketing piece.
- jason_tko 13y ago
  >> you end up with an offering that is designed for the enterprise, which automatically pushes out the smaller fish. Can you think of a utility or service that serves the needs of a wide range of businesses, from freelancers all the way up to enterprise? Electricity? Github? Dropbox? Internet connectivity? These services have found ways to charge all businesses of all sizes appropriately at fair rates, without "pushing out smaller fish". >> I would doubt very much that Colin feels like Tarsnap is a failure of some kind - quite the opposite. Much like the opposite of love is not hate (it's apathy), the opposite of success is not always failure (it's flat-lining). Growth keeps living things alive, including businesses. Patrick's suggestions are a bunch of ideas focused on helping Tarsnap grow. >> Patrick's agenda is keeping the idea that what he does is worth "Large Sums of Money". I do not know a better method to value something that is worth "Large Sums of Money" than people paying "Large Sums of Money" for it. In fact, that is the very definition of value. This is not limited to marketing people. It is the definition of a 'market'. Patrick has a track record of people paying large sums of money for his services, when he was actively consulting. >> A much shorter blog post: "Do you know Tarsnap? It's this amazing backup solution, created and run by Colin Percival." Lets imagine you have the experience and ability to 10x or 100x software companies, as Patrick does. When Patrick looks at Tarsnap, he sees a series of simple, straightforward actions that could 10x or 100x it, that does not necessarily require any more work than what Colin is currently doing. With that in mind, it would be impossible for Patrick to credibly and authentically write that kind of boring-ass sales-shill blog post, that would have reached a tiny audience of disinterested people. >> This would be allowing Colin to do business on his own terms. Colin is fully free and allowed to do business on his own terms. Patrick is also free and allowed to have and express opinions on how Colin does business. In fact, Patrick even received Colin's consent to write that blog post. >>Patrick's post just reads as a self-marketing piece. Having known Patrick for years, and considering him a close friend, this is the furthest statement from the truth I have read on the internet. At least, since I last reloaded the comment thread on this post.
  - rglullis 13y ago
    Seems like we are in very different mindsets when discussing the whole thing. First of all, I do not share the idea that growth is the only to measure success. In fact I strongly disagree with it. Colin's idea of success could as well be "What is the state of art when it comes to secure backup software? When Tarsnap is the answer, that will be considered a success". Second, you seem to be too hung up on the idea of keeping the business alive. I was semi-serious when I was talking about the post-scarcity world. In my ideal world, Colin would be out of work, just like me and everyone else. I want secure-backups to be a commodity infinitely cheap, not something that I may get for free only if someone else is subsidizing some artificially larger cost. I want Colin to work on things he cares about, out of his own personal interest, not for this SV fucked up measure of success. Third, I know my blog post is boring. That would be the whole point, actually. Don't forget we are talking about fucking BACKUPS here. They are not supposed to be exciting or deserve all this ink we are spilling over it. The point what I am trying to make is that, what I would see as an actual contribution worth of praise (and even value) would be if Patrick went through the boring parts and muck and said "Hey Colin, I know this is now what you want to focus on, but it's important as an user of the product, so here you go." Was that we got? No. What we got was some blog post from someone "highly trusted in the community", which works only to establish that he "knows what he is talking about". And yes, there are people willing to pay large amounts of cash for this. I wouldn't, and it disappoints me that so many people here do. Lastly, this is not an attack on Patrick, but rather on this mentality that is so widespread and so exposed on the blog post.

rglullis 13y ago

Oh, come on. "Taking their money" would never destroy them. As Patrick loves to say, this is peanuts to most company budgets. Also, by focusing on enterprise needs instead of normal folk, you end up with an offering that is designed for the enterprise, which automatically pushes out the smaller fish. > Patrick's agenda is Colin's success. Sorry, but this is bullshit. Read the blog post again. I would doubt very much that Colin feels like Tarsnap is a failure of some kind - quite the opposite. Patrick's agenda is keeping the idea that what he does is worth "Large Sums of Money". This might work with the marketing people, but it disappoints me to no end to see this becoming the prevailing view of "Hacker News". > What should Patrick have done? A much shorter blog post: "Do you know Tarsnap? It's this amazing backup solution, created and run by Colin Percival. I wished I could tell everyone to use, but I understand that most people get put off by it's lack of marketing polish. This is understandable if you know that Colin is a genius who (like most other geniuses) do not realize how things that seem simple to him might be harder for the common folk. I am not such a genius, so I can not contribute to tarsnap itself. But I can contribute to ancillary things that Colin is too smart to even bother doing. So I put together this website (http://link_to_repo http://link_to_repo) and also this wiki (http://link_to_wiki http://link_to_wiki) where people can discuss things and/or come together to improve the product in ways they think it's relevant. This way we can have Colin doing the things he is already happy doing at a such an affordable price, we can get rid of these small annoyances and get to have more arguments to convince Grandma to use Tarsnap. Most importantly, everyone can be sure that Tarsnap will be around for a much longer time. " Now, this would be pushing Colin's agenda. This would be allowing Colin to do business on his own terms. Patrick's post just reads as a self-marketing piece.

jason_tko 13y ago
>> you end up with an offering that is designed for the enterprise, which automatically pushes out the smaller fish. Can you think of a utility or service that serves the needs of a wide range of businesses, from freelancers all the way up to enterprise? Electricity? Github? Dropbox? Internet connectivity? These services have found ways to charge all businesses of all sizes appropriately at fair rates, without "pushing out smaller fish". >> I would doubt very much that Colin feels like Tarsnap is a failure of some kind - quite the opposite. Much like the opposite of love is not hate (it's apathy), the opposite of success is not always failure (it's flat-lining). Growth keeps living things alive, including businesses. Patrick's suggestions are a bunch of ideas focused on helping Tarsnap grow. >> Patrick's agenda is keeping the idea that what he does is worth "Large Sums of Money". I do not know a better method to value something that is worth "Large Sums of Money" than people paying "Large Sums of Money" for it. In fact, that is the very definition of value. This is not limited to marketing people. It is the definition of a 'market'. Patrick has a track record of people paying large sums of money for his services, when he was actively consulting. >> A much shorter blog post: "Do you know Tarsnap? It's this amazing backup solution, created and run by Colin Percival." Lets imagine you have the experience and ability to 10x or 100x software companies, as Patrick does. When Patrick looks at Tarsnap, he sees a series of simple, straightforward actions that could 10x or 100x it, that does not necessarily require any more work than what Colin is currently doing. With that in mind, it would be impossible for Patrick to credibly and authentically write that kind of boring-ass sales-shill blog post, that would have reached a tiny audience of disinterested people. >> This would be allowing Colin to do business on his own terms. Colin is fully free and allowed to do business on his own terms. Patrick is also free and allowed to have and express opinions on how Colin does business. In fact, Patrick even received Colin's consent to write that blog post. >>Patrick's post just reads as a self-marketing piece. Having known Patrick for years, and considering him a close friend, this is the furthest statement from the truth I have read on the internet. At least, since I last reloaded the comment thread on this post.
- rglullis 13y ago
  Seems like we are in very different mindsets when discussing the whole thing. First of all, I do not share the idea that growth is the only to measure success. In fact I strongly disagree with it. Colin's idea of success could as well be "What is the state of art when it comes to secure backup software? When Tarsnap is the answer, that will be considered a success". Second, you seem to be too hung up on the idea of keeping the business alive. I was semi-serious when I was talking about the post-scarcity world. In my ideal world, Colin would be out of work, just like me and everyone else. I want secure-backups to be a commodity infinitely cheap, not something that I may get for free only if someone else is subsidizing some artificially larger cost. I want Colin to work on things he cares about, out of his own personal interest, not for this SV fucked up measure of success. Third, I know my blog post is boring. That would be the whole point, actually. Don't forget we are talking about fucking BACKUPS here. They are not supposed to be exciting or deserve all this ink we are spilling over it. The point what I am trying to make is that, what I would see as an actual contribution worth of praise (and even value) would be if Patrick went through the boring parts and muck and said "Hey Colin, I know this is now what you want to focus on, but it's important as an user of the product, so here you go." Was that we got? No. What we got was some blog post from someone "highly trusted in the community", which works only to establish that he "knows what he is talking about". And yes, there are people willing to pay large amounts of cash for this. I wouldn't, and it disappoints me that so many people here do. Lastly, this is not an attack on Patrick, but rather on this mentality that is so widespread and so exposed on the blog post.