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The Cost of Developers

stratechery.com

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Re: The Cost of Developers

#41

Post by acdha »

heydenberk wrote: post #22

> the App Store dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for developers Is there any platform with higher barriers to entry than the App Store? iOS development requires a proprietary toolchain only available on Apple hardware, programming languages hardly used elsewhere, not to mention the $99/year developer fee and the litany of vague and arbitrarily enforced rules and content guidelines for App Store release.

Before the App Store selling mobile apps required negotiating with every carrier individually, and they priced based on your perceived ability to pay. We had clients who were interested until they were quoted around $50k per carrier just for the privilege of being listed!

Re: The Cost of Developers

#42

Post by mikekchar »

coldcode wrote: post #38
jillesvangurp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, github sold out to investors, which then owned them, which then sold them out to get an exit when it turned out the company was in no shape for an IPO which is the only reasonable other exit if you are looking for a 10x ROI on a company that burned through hundreds of millions. Investors were in this for a huge exit and they just got it. In fairness, MS bought a valuable social network of essentially the ent…

At where I work we use Github Enterprise, which costs way more than Gitlab Enterprise, is not scalable, and barely cares about enterprise customers like ourselves. Gitlab on the other hand is much cheaper, is highly scalable, runs in AWS, and is responsive to requests. Ultimately to make it as a business you need to provide what the customer wants and is willing to pay. Github never did.

Have I missed something here? Why are you with Github and not Gitlab?

Re: The Cost of Developers

#43

Post by simonh »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #17
martin_drapeau wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that Windows as a platform is fading away. The Web with SaaS and is taking a lot of that. Even if they keep 90% of the desktop market, revenues are migrating to cloud and apps. MS doesn't want to end up with just an OS running a browser to access other things.

Does MS not actually want it or is it your thinking?

Oh, they really don't want that because it makes the OS valueless. If the only desktop app you're running is a browser, you might as well be using ChromeOS.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#44

Post by scarface74 »

heydenberk wrote: post #30
whatshisface wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video game console development historically has often required thousands of dollars in special equipment and sometimes even a special relationship with the console manufacturer.

Good point. So if our point of comparison is video game consoles, the barriers to entry have indeed been lowered. But is that the right point of comparison?

Before the App Store, you had to have relationships with each carrier to get on thier app stores or you could write independent apps but no one would find you. They also took a 70% cut - not a 30% cut.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#45

Post by wastedhours »

mikekchar wrote: post #42
coldcode wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At where I work we use Github Enterprise, which costs way more than Gitlab Enterprise, is not scalable, and barely cares about enterprise customers like ourselves. Gitlab on the other hand is much cheaper, is highly scalable, runs in AWS, and is responsive to requests. Ultimately to make it as a business you need to provide what the customer wants and is willing to pay. Github never did.

Have I missed something here? Why are you with Github and not Gitlab?

Corporate inertia?

Re: The Cost of Developers

#46

Post by acdha »

cavisne wrote: post #20
martin_drapeau wrote: post #12

The author talks about leverage an OS provides to the vendor: iOS for Apple (and its App Store) and Windows for Microsoft. It is only logical that when your leverage fades, you should find an alternative means for growth. Microsoft has been betting on the cloud for some time now. Part of that strategy is shifting enterprise from premise to Azure. In parallel investing in developers. VS Code, .NET Core and now GitHub…

The hobbyiest/ side project angle of this is the most interesting to me. Most side projects end up in github at some point (especially if Microsoft makes private repos free - very likely). Azure’s PaaS offering is actually pretty good so having a simple deploy to azure button when creating the project could be a huge boost.

That’s my expectation, too: they don’t change anything except that there’ll be a super easy path to deploy on Azure and probably some nice CI tools, etc. with great VSCode integration. (“You have a Dockerfile. Click here to deploy on Azure free tier.”)

Simply making sure they’re considered along with AWS would be big, especially since experience on small or side projects factors into many business decisions.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#47

Post by scarface74 »

cavisne wrote: post #20
martin_drapeau wrote: post #12

The author talks about leverage an OS provides to the vendor: iOS for Apple (and its App Store) and Windows for Microsoft. It is only logical that when your leverage fades, you should find an alternative means for growth. Microsoft has been betting on the cloud for some time now. Part of that strategy is shifting enterprise from premise to Azure. In parallel investing in developers. VS Code, .NET Core and now GitHub…

The hobbyiest/ side project angle of this is the most interesting to me. Most side projects end up in github at some point (especially if Microsoft makes private repos free - very likely). Azure’s PaaS offering is actually pretty good so having a simple deploy to azure button when creating the project could be a huge boost.

Microsoft already has free private git repos, project management, hosted build servers for Windows, Linux,Macs, etc.

It's been available with VSTS for years.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#48

Post by icedchai »

alter_eco123 wrote: post #40
rsp1984 wrote: post #13

There are times when I really like the thoughtful analysis on Stratechery and there are other times when I think it's a complete pile of detached-from-reality horsesh!t. Today is of the 2nd kind. What it also has is a potentially fatal weakness: no platform with user-based leverage. Sorry, what? Windows still has > 90% market share on desktop. If that isn't "user-based leverage" I don't know what is. This, by the way…

> Seriously? GitHub could have easily gone out for more VC. Making it as an independent company generally involves not taking on more debt on top of a massive pile of debt. What's necessary is, you know, profits and stuff.

1) Equity isn't debt.

2) Profits? You must be kidding. Take a look at some SaaS companies that have gone public in the last 5 years. Few are profitable. It's all about growth of revenue. The profits are way down the line.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#49

Post by oblio »

calferreira wrote: post #31
martin_drapeau wrote: post #12

The author talks about leverage an OS provides to the vendor: iOS for Apple (and its App Store) and Windows for Microsoft. It is only logical that when your leverage fades, you should find an alternative means for growth. Microsoft has been betting on the cloud for some time now. Part of that strategy is shifting enterprise from premise to Azure. In parallel investing in developers. VS Code, .NET Core and now GitHub…

I host all my side projects on VSTS. Free source control TFS & GIT. Free builds. Free project management. Heck, i have a complete pipeline to build my code and deploy it to the app store. Costs me zero per month. Please keep in mind that is "free" (has limits), but for my usage is more than enough. I can't do the same on AWS AFAIK or even github.

AWS has a free tier but it's quite byzantine in its rules.
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