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The Cost of Developers

stratechery.com

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Re: The Cost of Developers

#71

Post by pjc50 »

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.

Compared to previous mobile phone development? Yes, absolutely.

Compared to getting into PC retail sales? Yes, absolutely.

Compared to web development? No barriers at all, but hard to earn money other than by ads.

Compared to PC shareware? Well, that did have a lower barrier to entry and did make lots of money for id Software. This might genuinely have been the lowest barrier to entry platform that it was possible to earn money on.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#72

Post by scarface74 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #66
scarface74 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are those regular old desktop apps? Apps built by Microsoft, Adobe, and a few other large companies. The bespoke internal business apps have been moving to the web for decades.

I think you'd be surprised how few companies that aren't SV startups actually give a damn about the cloud. "Oh, you want to charge me a subscription to use software I already own and host all my data and critical infrastructure somewhere where I don't have direct control over it? And it costs more? Where do I sign up!?"

The last company that I worked for was the stodgiest, old school non SV company that you could find.

They paid software as a service companies for everything from project management, human resource related software, mobile device management, email, they had Office 365, etc.

Most new internal software is being written using web technologies. Even if they are hosting the apps themselves. They want thier employees to be able to access their bespoke apps remotely without logging into a Citrix Server.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#73

Post by compcoffee »

scarface74 wrote: post #39
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…

Sorry, what? Windows still has > 90% market share on desktop. If that isn't "user-based leverage" I don't know what is. In the grand scheme of things. No one cares about desktop development. Walk into a VCs office and tell them that you have the next great idea for a Windows app and watch how fast you get laughed out of the office. How many developers are going to flock to writing Windows apps? As much as I hate it,…

>Walk into a VCs office and tell them that you have the next great idea for a Windows app and watch how fast you get laughed out of the office.

In most of the world the "goal" isn't to go raise VC money. It's to develop a product and earn a living.

Maybe people building Windows apps for the massive market are doing okay without the desire to raise billions and take over the world?

Re: The Cost of Developers

#74

Post by d--b »

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.

The barrier was the _distribution_. Before the app store, you'd have to make a website of some sort to sell your app. And then you'd have to advertise your app, and so on. The app store does all that for you, so that you just build your app and that's it.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#75

Post by pjmlp »

scarface74 wrote: post #60
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the grand scheme of things. No one cares about desktop development. Maybe no one in reality-distortion field of SV cares about Desktop, but offices are full of them and they're still running regular old desktop applications to do real work.

What are those regular old desktop apps? Apps built by Microsoft, Adobe, and a few other large companies. The bespoke internal business apps have been moving to the web for decades.

In SV maybe.

I have been developing mostly new WPF enterprise applications in the last 4 years and there is plenty of work across European business.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#76

Post by compcoffee »

icedchai wrote: post #48
alter_eco123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>Few are profitable. It's all about growth of revenue. The profits are way down the line.

We are officially well on our way to 1999 bubble territory! Nothing matters but revenue growth, even if you're selling dollars for 50 cents.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#77

Post by shanghaiaway »

dalbasal wrote: post #67
mgc092 wrote: post #5

Great analysis, although I don't completely agree with this statement: "GitHub, a company that, having raised $350 million in venture capital, was not going to make it as an independent entity." If it is referring to the fact that, in the crazy VC spiral of the startups world, once you have received such a big investment, a sale to a big corp is the only choice, then I sadly agree. But GitHub could have been an indep…

I agree with one caveat, I don't think it's the amount of money. I think it's valuations, and methods of funding/valuing companies. Zuck still owns 30% of fb, after (I assume) cashing out some shares. Early execs/investors would probably own 75% or more of the company if you exclude shares sold/cashed out (as opposed to dilution). This is because that FB never had to raise serious^ money. Put another way, it does not…

Zuck has a large stake because he got his seed funding from his parents and could negotiate their series A round from a position of strength.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#78

Post by heavenlyblue »

simonh wrote: post #43
heavenlyblue wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But it doesn't suddenly make Windows any less valuable than ChromeOS. Which means that under the assumption of 50% of the market still using Windows, they will continue using Windows.

You may be drinking the kool-aid, but 90% of the market doesn't care. Windows costs $20 per device; ChromeOS has a non-zero cost either.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#79

Post by vinceguidry »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #66
scarface74 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are those regular old desktop apps? Apps built by Microsoft, Adobe, and a few other large companies. The bespoke internal business apps have been moving to the web for decades.

I think you'd be surprised how few companies that aren't SV startups actually give a damn about the cloud. "Oh, you want to charge me a subscription to use software I already own and host all my data and critical infrastructure somewhere where I don't have direct control over it? And it costs more? Where do I sign up!?"

This is disingenuous, the big software outfits have entire teams of people to ensure their price points are reflective of existing market offerings. They'll raise prices when they can, and slightly lower them when they're looking to make a play like this. Nothing about the cloud makes this dance any different, we're still using the same steps and beat, just to an internet jukebox.

Re: The Cost of Developers

#80

Post by rjsw »

peshkira wrote: post #53
ealexhudson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github would have had trouble getting more VC investment. According to Bloomberg, there are ~21M software developers in the world, and Github has ~24M user accounts. There's little userbase growth possible there; they would have had to start increasing revenue per user rapidly to be interesting for another VC round. Equally, on their $200M revenue (or whatever it was), they would struggle to get a multiple that would…

According to Tim Cook yesterday, there are 20M Apple Developers. Someone is not telling it like it is :)

If that is based on number of Xcode downloads then it will over-count, you need to install it to use Homebrew.
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