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Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

blog.hiri.com

41–50 of 395 posts

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#42
post #5

Completely unrelated to the contents: Please, publishers, I beg you: walk away from medium. It's terrible for us, your readers. Set up a static blog, with a domain, go WordPress, Grav, Typo3, anything, but without stupidly large sticky header/footer and without heavy javascript . EDIT: apparently 121KB javascript is not heavy. I still believe it's an overkill for 30KB content.

I barely see the problem. Sure, the header and footer aren't perfect, but stupidly large? I also don't feel any "cpu melting javascripts" and my PC is barely usable when I compile anything. For me, Medium provides a very readable experience that is much better than the average static blog. And I don't have to fear a malware ridden page like an old Wordpress installation.

This is how the article looks like on 1280x800: https://i.imgur.com/L07L4ce.png

Sticky header/footer, cookie consent covering the menu, not a single line of the content visible. You consider this design good?

I might be wrong with this specific site on the JS - it only loaded 121KB Javascript. The actual HTML of the entry is 30.

WordPress nowadays upgrades itself to minor version - security patches - without touching it, and they release security patches for ancient versions as well. I'm aware there are unpatched sites out there, but they are either ancient - 5+ years - and untouched since, or deliberately crippled.

Average static blog has a very decent default theme.

But hey, different people, different opinions.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#43
post #5

Completely unrelated to the contents: Please, publishers, I beg you: walk away from medium. It's terrible for us, your readers. Set up a static blog, with a domain, go WordPress, Grav, Typo3, anything, but without stupidly large sticky header/footer and without heavy javascript . EDIT: apparently 121KB javascript is not heavy. I still believe it's an overkill for 30KB content.

Why is it that I only ever hear those complaints on HN and never elsewhere... Are you all still using Pentium 3 PCs and 56k modems?

Maybe it’s the same reason why you hear professional designers complain when they see Comic Sans used for body text, but laypersons rarely will mention it.

A pro will notice things about implementation that interfere with the content, while the layperson often can’t articulate it even if they sense it’s not quite right.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#44
post #5

Completely unrelated to the contents: Please, publishers, I beg you: walk away from medium. It's terrible for us, your readers. Set up a static blog, with a domain, go WordPress, Grav, Typo3, anything, but without stupidly large sticky header/footer and without heavy javascript . EDIT: apparently 121KB javascript is not heavy. I still believe it's an overkill for 30KB content.

Danr4 wrote a javascript bookmarklet that gets rid those stupid fixed elements [1]. He posted it on here before. It certainly makes those sites more bearable.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616682

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#45
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little to no evidence of this. I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work). So in that sense, a Linux user might be less likely to use a product if they care most about the openness of the platform.

> I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work). Then those people are lying. Free is absolutely a factor for many.

It improved a bit recently but in most countries it is difficult to buy a laptop without paying for Windows with it. When you install Linux on such a laptop, you obviously don't do it for the money. And given the availability of non Windows laptops, I would think this is the most common case for linux on laptops.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#46
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is little to no evidence of this. I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work). So in that sense, a Linux user might be less likely to use a product if they care most about the openness of the platform.

> I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work). Then those people are lying. Free is absolutely a factor for many.

>Then those people are lying. Free is absolutely a factor for many. Source? Because if money is a problem you install Windows and live with the not genuime notification in the corner or you run some app that removes that too. I do not have data with numbers but please provide yours since you accused people of lying.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#47
post #34
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at "make medium readable again", a plugin for firefox and chrome. Source is on github, could not paste the link because i am on mobile.

For the scripts i'd recommend uMatrix

This. I never encountered any problem with Medium posts.

EDIT: ...and you can use reader mode in FF to get rid of the header.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#48
post #7

I'd imagine for most Linux users (not all, of course) that they're not interested in paid proprietary products, which is why they chose Linux in the first place.

There is little to no evidence of this. I don't think I've ever seen someone claim to use Linux because it's free (no cost). It's almost always because it's an open platform or because it has the best tools for the job they're doing (e.g. development work). So in that sense, a Linux user might be less likely to use a product if they care most about the openness of the platform.

I paid for OS/2 and Next, but ended going to Linux because it had all the apps I needed and was getting patched a lot faster.

Also, I have bought brand new laptops which come with a version of windows, so if money was the issue I'd just use that, but I'm much more productive with Linux, so I install it as a first step on all my machines.

Re: Our experience launching a paid, proprietary product on Linux

#50
Regarding: "Forge strong relationships with your Linux users. Make it easy for them to get in touch. Listen to them. Linux is a community — word will spread!" Where would be a good place to ask average users of desktop Linux questions?

* Hiri went to Reddit. I would think that the r/linux community is a very tiny subset of users. Young and bored, who just want to be part of something? Criticizing the mainstream like Microsoft, Ubuntu, GNOME. Like goths and punks from before? That was the impression it gave me when I visited it a few months ago. Doesn't seem to be very representative of the average desktop Linux user.

* IRC is likely too technical. Finding sysadmins and developers there should be no problem, but they're likely not your average user.

* Since Linux is such a small section of the market, it probably won't be of any use to try other social media websites. You can find Windows and iOS users in any community, but not Linux users.

Unless there is no such thing as an average Linux desktop user. Maybe there is no mom & pop, without geeky interests, careers outside of tech, who have Ubuntu on their laptop. Maybe it's all sysadmins, developers, nerds, and youngsters. In which case I don't think there will be a lot of reason to sell anything there other than games and tools like Sublime, although the games might be better on Windows and iOS.

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