Paying for software is okay, except when it keeps trying to milk you even after paying for it, especially if it's a subscription. This can come in the form of ads, the sale of personal information, or some other crap (such as binding arbitration).
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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3 minutes in before its revealed its actually a sponsored video to advertise daily.dev
It's a garbage website as far as I can see. Might as well just stick to the actual source websites where all their content actually comes from.
If you're wondering, no Appflowy cannot be used to replace Notion. It's in their claim but you would have a pretty bad time doing it. Anytype might one day get there, Appflowy is another thing.
FOSS developers should be paid.
It’s very misleading to say “paying for software is stupid” and not consider the total cost of ownership. TCO includes things like infrastructure and maintenance. As an exec, I am constantly faced with two choices: free software that might do what I want or paid software that sort of does what I want. At face value, you would immediately tell me to get the free stuff. That’s where you miss TCO.
(Read the last paragraph if you think the business lens is bullshit)
Every FOSS solution I run requires me to deploy and maintain it. I only have so many hours in the day so at some threshold I have to hire more and more people to deploy and maintain. Integrating? That’s on me too because I’m using free software so now I need a resource to glue things together. My “free” option actually costs a portion of my engineering resources. I’m also on the hook for failures. Running my own ERP? I need to have support staff on-call to handle outages.
Every paid solution I run costs can require some of those things. Let’s ignore paid licenses and just focus on things I can completely outsource. This means I’m no longer on the hook for deployment and maintenance, so if I can show the cost of the paid software is less than my TCO, it’s a better deal. If I have a good relationship with the vendor, I might be able to delegate my integration needs to their product pipeline. I might be able to purchase a support contract that’s cheaper than running my own.
At some point every company will outgrow certain software. It’s a constant reevaluation of the costs of paid vs TCO of free and when I need to spend resources making it do something it doesn’t. A managed telemetry stack like Sumo or New Relic allows me to scale quickly but cheaply until I have the revenue to build an in-house team to instrument fucking everything.
The exact same logic applies to my time. I could run free everything. That comes with a higher TCO (usually). I say this as someone who has rebuilt dot files repos on the dot every three years and been running Linux since you could get it in a book at B Dalton at the indoor shopping mall so my tolerance for personal TCO is very high. However, I don’t change my own oil. It’s free! I could do it myself! I don’t want to. I buy certain things, like software, in my personal life because the TCO of FOSS is higher than I want to pay. I have outgrown Windows and Mac so I have some level required cost in Linux. I pay for some things like storage and routing solutions even though I could build and deploy and maintain all of that myself. Sometimes I just want my shit to work and not have to do it myself.
An important component of the cost to consider is how long we expect a company to support a piece of software, and how much it would cost to migrate everything when they drop support. FOSS wins in this regard, especially if you can get a support contact with the devs.
Neither wins here. I cannot tell you how many libraries I have had to replace because FOSS devs move on. It’s probably greater than the number of products I’ve had to abandon for lack of support but I’m not sure what that is at a percentage level. In the DevOps world everything burns constantly, paid and free.
It wins in the sense that you still have access to the software and code, and you have the option to either hire someone new to maintaining it or switch to something else. Closed source proprietary software only leaves you with the latter choice.
That’s fair! I agree with that.
This is a great perspective to voice. Sometimes those of us who are staunch FOSS advocates can lose sight of the big picture. If one's goal is to be, for example, an eCommerce software vendor, it probably doesn't make sense to build and maintain your own DB stack or Internet infrastructure even though it is technically feasible. The money and resources needed to maintain that stuff will take away from the ability to improve and maintain the eConmerce application.
One revenue source for FOSS projects is providing enterprise support, allowing you to outsource support.
And that's been a very successful one. Not every component has such a model, however.
that thumbnail is fucking insane
Paying for software is not inherently stupid. Bad and misleading title.
The headline completely misses the point of Free Software as well. It's about free as in freedom, not beer.
Not triggered by this emotional outrage bait
it either costs your time or money or both. There is no situation where anything is free.
I'm currently fixing, not mine, repos. I have the skill level to fix other coders design issues. One at a time.
This is costing me time. Not just in doing the work, but all the time leading up to gaining the skillset to be at this level.
Put a price tag on that. (i'm not boasting; actually having to do this grind)
Agreed, you are paying for it to be someone else's problem to fix.
I support them adding ads and commercials into their products like pop ups and stuff or they can sell my information
I agree. Now I'll go back to watching youtube videos on my payed Grayjay.
What's Grayjay?
An alternative video client. Mostly known for pulling add free youtube. But you can have several sources like patreon or nebula. The app is free and source available but they ask you to buy a license if you like it. It's made/supportes by futo
Edit: changed "open source" to "source available"
Thanks
Ah thanks A bit more context would have been nice but anyway
I was not aware of the distinction.
Grayjay is source available. But you are essentially not allowed to do anything with/to it.
It's just clickbait, which is unavoidable on youtube if you want your video to be seen by more than 5 people. I don't blame the creator for it tbh
One if the reasons why I avoid YouTube completely.
Remember, for every paid SaaS, there is a free open-source self-hosted alternative
CAD. Free solutions compared to commercial ones (SolidWorks, Inventor, Fusion360, Onshape) are like comparing Photoshop to an open source Paint clone.
I don't mind paying for software and I regularly donate to open source projects. The problem is that most corporate software is closed and I don't have the freedom to use it as I wish.
Also on Odysee (at least an alternative) https://odysee.com/@fireship:6/paying-for-software-is-stupid%E2%80%A6-10-free:5
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