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Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

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Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#11
post #10

The same happens with apps, they will download it and need to try it first to decide whether it deserves a star, most will forget. That's why apps are constantly bugging users to leave a rating. Remind them that you need it for motivation.

It doesn't help much, in my experience.

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#12
I've once built a vscode extension. I didn't expect much, but was still suprised at the complete lack of feedback, reviews, etc. despite many downloads. One day I've added a popup asking for reviews. Virtually all my reviews come from the period I've left it up. My takeaway was, letting people know what to do goes a long way.

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#14

People value a thing, personally, in relation to what it cost them. When it came free with no effort, it has no value and therefore it takes a real effort to understand that the maintainer and others may not see it the same way. open source software gives you , the user, the responsibility for you use of it; where most people want that to be someone else's job. They want to jump on the gokart and ride, not check the…

Maybe developers should adopt the experience of bloggers from YouTube. Like: let's get n number of stars - then you'll get a new release? :)

Sure. That's a straightforward variant on the Street Performer Protocol:

https://www.firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/67...

Kickstarter's "project is funded when enough people commit" is another, though Kickstarters don't usually produce public or open source works.

In general these are considered "threshold pledge systems":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system

Whether the thing being funded is a rivalrous good or a public one, this pattern solves the problem of latent demand by derisking the transaction to overcome the reluctance to commit unless the expenditure will make a difference.

Applying the pattern episodically, and you get Patreon's ongoing pledge per work produced. Apply the pattern recursively and you get Kickstarter's stretch goals. Combine the price discrimination pattern one way and you get pledge/reward levels. Use price discrimination another way (particularly for public goods) and you get "early access".

There are probably other interesting and useful variations that are still yet to be discovered.

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#15
It's simple maths. Even if everyone creates 1 piece of OSS software, that makes millions of pieces of software.

So everyone creates their 1 thing, then you have millions using things they didn't create. Makes it seem like no one's contributing even if they did contribute to the ecosystem.

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#16

People value a thing, personally, in relation to what it cost them. When it came free with no effort, it has no value and therefore it takes a real effort to understand that the maintainer and others may not see it the same way. open source software gives you , the user, the responsibility for you use of it; where most people want that to be someone else's job. They want to jump on the gokart and ride, not check the…

In many ways I agree. But one thing I can not understand because if we talk in the context of GitHub, the project users are users of GitHub and they are probably the developers themselves and know the value of labor, well, I think they do.

As far as I even seen, starring things or explicit random thanks to strangers were never a thing among developers in any environment. People say thank you in person, but under jira tickets, on Github etc, it is just seems odd.

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#17
It is way harder to contribute to open source then people seem to think. Not because open source is something special technology wise, but because it is as complex and as time consuming to learn its code base as any commercial project. Otherwise said, people who work 40 hours a week coding, rarely have time and inclination to squeze 4 more man days of coding to the same month.

And also, the usual very frequent response is the project ignoring pull request.

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#19

Because it's a consumerist dream to have a team you don't pay work on a thing you use for free. OSS users are biased towards consumerism. But what is the alternative?

GitHub seems to be going in the direction of solving the problem. Access to the repo only if you're a sponsor. But I think for people to start donating to you, you or your repo has to be known. It's a closed circle...

Re: Ask HN: Why most people who use open source are so consumerist?

#20
well the only way some people learn something is to ask questions which in turn makes it easier for others to use something which increases the community. but i guess if someone is expecting someone to answer their question right away then they may be too entitled. but realistically speaking helping others increases community. you may get a few "slackers" who don't contribute but not everyone who ask questions is a 1 time charly... some actually end up contributing once they understand the code, i've been this person.
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