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GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

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Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#231
post #60
post #3

The thought of losing Github to the startup graveyard is kind of scary. It was bad enough to lose Google Code and when SourceForge had their "great purge" of inactive projects.

We'll just move the code to gitlab. Git allow us to do it almost painlessly (well, with a missing issue backlog). It's not a big deal.

Gitlab is slower then Github

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#232
post #190
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the idea that venture capitalists alter ("distort" is a loaded term) the market in their favor. That's part of the natural process of systems commoditizing their complements. But I really think that you characterize this in an uncharitable way with your example, which I have difficulty believing as it was stated. If your lead really understood that they would "immediately earn a 5x return with no risk",…

Perhaps you live in a world different from mine, but what you describe as "cartoonishly foolish" behavior I consider completely standard. Customers refuse to spend 5000 to make 20.000 all the time, or they're willing to waste weeks finding a different vendor that can offer the same for 3000. Others are willing to walk away from a great deal unless they get a discount, but are content with a tiny discount. Because a d…

The blame also needs to fall on those who came before us. Everyone has been burnt to some degree by benefits being poorly forecast.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#233
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you live in a world different from mine, but what you describe as "cartoonishly foolish" behavior I consider completely standard. Customers refuse to spend 5000 to make 20.000 all the time, or they're willing to waste weeks finding a different vendor that can offer the same for 3000. Others are willing to walk away from a great deal unless they get a discount, but are content with a tiny discount. Because a d…

I live in the same world as you. My business has a proven model for digital publishers that generally increases their yield 2-4x yet they refuse to spend the percentage needed to make the deal happen. Sometimes pride can be so large...spend 5k to make 50k? No thanks..lol

I understand that I don't have the same insight into your customers as you do, but to give a counterpoint, I charge significantly higher than $5k for my services and my customers don't receive any tangible improvement to their revenue as a result. I have not found that they are incredulous about my rates, let alone due to pride. Maybe there's something other than pride at play here, such as market dynamics or your product?

Your customers' pride could be one reason why they refuse to spend that, but have you considered that this is an uncharitable perspective? Don't you think it could also be because they have honest reservations about your product or better alternatives for their business than that they are obstinately refusing to just hand over their money to make $50k?

I think it's much more likely that the situation is actually quite nuanced with competing incentives, priorities and perspectives on either side. An information asymmetry is not the same thing as irrationality.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#234
post #17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what happens with centralized systems it is inevitable, from the Roman Empire to Google Code nothing is permanent.

The laws of physics are.

the laws of physics change each time our understanding does

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#235
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you live in a world different from mine, but what you describe as "cartoonishly foolish" behavior I consider completely standard. Customers refuse to spend 5000 to make 20.000 all the time, or they're willing to waste weeks finding a different vendor that can offer the same for 3000. Others are willing to walk away from a great deal unless they get a discount, but are content with a tiny discount. Because a d…

I live in the same world as you. My business has a proven model for digital publishers that generally increases their yield 2-4x yet they refuse to spend the percentage needed to make the deal happen. Sometimes pride can be so large...spend 5k to make 50k? No thanks..lol

1. They don't believe the benefit will be realised in their circumstance.

2. There is both opportunity cost and hidden cost for trying your solution.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do YOU have any rigorous analysis that "inclusive" practices like insulting white people by saying "white middle managers can't have empathy" in internal company presentations increases profitability and success at a company?

Nope, but I didn't make that assertion, so you appear to be strawmanning.

The way you phrased your question made it sound like you were snarkily implying that, yes. If that's not what you were doing, ignore my comment and move on.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#237
post #3

The thought of losing Github to the startup graveyard is kind of scary. It was bad enough to lose Google Code and when SourceForge had their "great purge" of inactive projects.

Or is it - to me Github is just another example of the developer tools market cycle. Reminds me a bit of the image hosting market - image hosting company is created and gains momentum, then has to monetize, so they add advertising and people start to drift away when someone else then creates the next image hosting site.

In the developer space, it seems pretty much the same. SourceForge was good/cool until it wasn't, so people moved to Github. Now, as Github perhaps gradually loses steam or coolness (might not happen either), another company will emerge (maybe it's Gitlab) who will take share while Github perhaps spins into irrelevance. Wash, rinse, repeat - but each time the software tends to get cheaper and cheaper, creating a massive deflationary environment as the particular developer tool set becomes commodity.

Or maybe AWS or Google step in with an actual good product (hasn't happened yet as far as I can tell in CI/CD but hey you never know), and they charge nothing for it because it's part of a basket of services. Margin for the standalone company goes to zero.

Developers have, as far as I can tell, almost zero brand loyalty - and that probably makes sense - but it's very tough in my opinion to create great products for developers and make money as a company at the same time.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. That's why we never find out we were wrong about anything in science.

The laws of physics aren't interchangeable with our understanding of them

That's a philosophically naive view of how science works.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#239
post #182
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the idea that venture capitalists alter ("distort" is a loaded term) the market in their favor. That's part of the natural process of systems commoditizing their complements. But I really think that you characterize this in an uncharitable way with your example, which I have difficulty believing as it was stated. If your lead really understood that they would "immediately earn a 5x return with no risk",…

Yes, I purposely choose colourful language. Github is an amazing product, in part because they had $66M to spend making it amazing. Think about all of our other favourite pieces of software, and many will have the same story. This results in the marketplace having unrealistic expectations for software quality when the market size won't sustain VC levels of investment. Regarding your disbelief, you assume (like econom…

Consumers are rational. They aren't unlimited in their ability to source and process information. We're not very good at understanding their behaviour.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#240
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you live in a world different from mine, but what you describe as "cartoonishly foolish" behavior I consider completely standard. Customers refuse to spend 5000 to make 20.000 all the time, or they're willing to waste weeks finding a different vendor that can offer the same for 3000. Others are willing to walk away from a great deal unless they get a discount, but are content with a tiny discount. Because a d…

> Because a discount to them signifies a moral victory, or that they're not being taken advantage of, or they simply want to believe they're great negotiators or something like that. I don't get it, but I have seen it often enough for it not to be unusual. Then why not raise your price to $99, and let them negotiate you down to... $35?

Because most customers don't like, or don't know how, to negotiate (yes even B2B customers where you would think this is the norm). So if the initial price is too high, they won't even bother to talk to you. The conversation literally dies.
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