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Akamai to Acquire Linode

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Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#211
post #188
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in 2012 the tech community's sentiment was actually that Bitcoin was really cool and definitely useful, since it was new and did things in a practical application that we hadn't seen before. It's interesting that hindsight clouds that, it has been viewed negatively for years now but it's not that old yet. (Either way, your main point stands of course.)

I was on the mailing list the day the paper was released, and played around with the original PoC. Lots of us thought bitcoin was dumb back then. Lots of us still do.

No post body was provided.

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#212
post #53
post #17

I think this is Akamai figuring out they need to address the self-serve market. Akamai has 6x the edge network footprint of Cloudflare and has all the cool trendy stuff like edge workers, they just suck at selling to the developer.

"they just suck at selling to the developer." They have all the major compagnies / F500, though so no need to appeal to the HN crowd.

Yeah, why get in on the next insta before its big...

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#213
post #170

Should this and other recent acquisitions (AMD/Xilinx comes to mind) have been blocked due to antitrust concerns?

I'm not sure that this specifically would risk breaching any antitrust regulations. There is still plenty of competition in their respective sectors, Akamai and Linode are more or less complimenting one another's services with minimal overlap, there's nothing to suggest that this will result in any meaningful impact to the ability for open market influences to determine their pricing, it doesn't appear to generate any conflicting interests or provide either company with an unfair advantage over their competitors, and it doesn't grant Akamai any outsized leverage in any of its areas of interest.

I'm personally of the opinion that a greater diversity of many smaller companies is almost always preferable to homogeneity and the anticompetitive inclinations that come with the vertically integrated corporations that currently plague a good bit of the tech sector, but Akamai + Linode doesn't strike me as the same kind of threat as the larger players.

That said, I am a longtime happy Linode customer, and the prospect of anything coming along to dilute their current offerings and practices is concerning. But they've earned the benefit of the doubt, so until I have some specific reason to do otherwise I'll be sticking with them.

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#215
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, my anecdotes come from other people IRL... Not sure why there is this inconsistency, perhaps it depends on the type of issue.

Yeah now that I think about it, it's going to be hard to generalise because experience will depend on the type of issues. Ok, here goes for me: Limit increases: looked automated?, person might get involved if automation can't approve. Stuff outside the control plane (e.g. how do I install nginx on this?): - no idea, never asked those questions, don't expect they'd hold your hand much unless you're spending a lot. May…

> Something broken with AWS in general: usually not timely responses but path here is to use PHD (personal health dashboard).

Ah, I think this is the type of issue i've heard of where you hit a wall on AWS.

In my experience with Linode when there has been infra issues they are very open if pushed, which is useful because sometimes there are ways you can mitigate it if you understand what's going on... they will also pre-emptively open a ticket with your account in case you want to discuss it, most of the time these resolve themselves, but you can dig if you have concerns. e.g one time we had a few VPSs go through a vague "physical host failure" migration unusually close in time, so I asked if there was anything going on with hypervisor bugs (turns out there was a regression) and whether we could pre-emptively migrate stuff to patched hosts on our own terms rather than wait for it to be randomly picked - and they just opened up, explained what was going on and helped us schedule our other VPSs.

> Stuff outside the control plane (e.g. how do I install nginx on this?): - no idea, never asked those questions

Me neither, it's usually Linode specific support I use, they also have extended paid support for that type of stuff and I've never used it but it's there for people who need it.

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#216
post #102
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We blocked the entire of Linode AS63949 ranges because we were getting attacked from random owned nodes and it was tripping our IDS constantly. Just got fed up with it in the end and decided to hose them. To note, we have had problems with AWS blocking random addresses as well where we've had staff abroad.

Same, but DO as well.

Same but also about a hundred others in my block list, except it's not enough because they keep on coming and new ones popping up all the time.

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#217
post #122
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, we are random internet people, and it's a "me vs. you" scenario, but as someone who worked at Linode in 2012, we were a small company, that all worked out of one office, with like 3 admins at the time. Yes, there were various hacks. Yes, there were silly vulns, but positing that one of the employees at that time stole bitcoin is something that I won't stand for. Could it have happened, sure. Do I think that it…

I think in 2012 the tech community's sentiment was actually that Bitcoin was really cool and definitely useful, since it was new and did things in a practical application that we hadn't seen before. It's interesting that hindsight clouds that, it has been viewed negatively for years now but it's not that old yet. (Either way, your main point stands of course.)

I recently learned that proof of work was actually invented long before Bitcoin to combat spam, but the idea didn't take off, sadly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_work

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

https://scottpeterjohnson.github.io/hashwall/dist/index.html

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#218
Been a Linode customer for around 10 years. Most of the time has been very smooth. Easy to use, and easy on the wallet. Kind of the opposite of the AWS policy of sneaking up, grabbing you by the balls, and yanking.

I feel bad for their customer support today. They have kind of trained people to go ahead and ask questions by being responsive. The number of dumb questions no one really knows the answer to will be at an all time high today.

Anyway congrats to Aker and other staff, hope they can all retire comfortably or take a long vacation if they want.

Re: Akamai to Acquire Linode

#219

I'm very disappointed at all the negativity here. I get it, I'm worried too. I hate the modern trend of the exit always being an acquisition. I hate that the big companies scoop up the good little companies and ruin them. I hate it all. I feel very jaded too, and I'm very worried about what this means too. I have significant investment running on linode and I don't want to have to move it, which also means paying mor…

It may be okay, Redhat has been fine under IBM. I'm just pessimistic by nature, I'm not disappointed that often, and delightfully surprised sometimes, if infrequently. Just because you have a pessimistic outlook on life doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, I think it's more of a Buddhist (some forms anyway) way of expecting suffering and delighting in the joy of life nonetheless.

The Red Hat acquisition was two years ago. On the timeframe or "corporate parent ruins acquired", it's still the short term, so I don't think we can call a verdict at this point.
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