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Fable is winding down

fable.app

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Re: Fable is winding down

#11

Post by tsimionescu »

notpushkin wrote: post #6

> On November 15, 2024, the Fable product will be shut down. All users will no longer be able to sign up, log in, or access files. All customer data and project files will be permanently deleted [...] > We recommend you look through your Fable files and export your projects off the platform (e.g. to mp4, gif, lottie… etc). I genuinely am at a loss for words here. Somebody sat down and decided that giving you your pro…

Was Fable using a well-known format, or is it a proprietary format specific to the app ? If it's proprietary, would it make any sense to export it directly? Is it even a file format, or is it possible they were simply storing various pieces of data related to your project in various places in backend DBs?

Re: Fable is winding down

#12

Post by invaderzirp »

notpushkin wrote: post #6

> On November 15, 2024, the Fable product will be shut down. All users will no longer be able to sign up, log in, or access files. All customer data and project files will be permanently deleted [...] > We recommend you look through your Fable files and export your projects off the platform (e.g. to mp4, gif, lottie… etc). I genuinely am at a loss for words here. Somebody sat down and decided that giving you your pro…

This shouldn't be surprising anymore. This has happened every week since 2010. This is the VC cycle, and it happens over and over and over and over and over again. In fact, I'm sure there's some flashy new thing on the front page right now that will have its own corresponding "goodbye" thread in 2-10 years, and everyone will get screwed by that, too.

We can lament the current state of affairs, but let's not pretend it's abnormal.

Re: Fable is winding down

#13

Post by unsnap_biceps »

SoftTalker wrote: post #7

It always amazes me how many of these "we're winding down X" stories hit the front page here and I've never heard of X. We really do work in silos, even if it doesn't seem that way.

I had actually assumed it was the studio behind the Fable games, or some sort of mmrpg based on the games.

Re: Fable is winding down

#14

Post by sentientslug »

tsimionescu wrote: post #11
notpushkin wrote: post #6

> On November 15, 2024, the Fable product will be shut down. All users will no longer be able to sign up, log in, or access files. All customer data and project files will be permanently deleted [...] > We recommend you look through your Fable files and export your projects off the platform (e.g. to mp4, gif, lottie… etc). I genuinely am at a loss for words here. Somebody sat down and decided that giving you your pro…

Was Fable using a well-known format, or is it a proprietary format specific to the app ? If it's proprietary, would it make any sense to export it directly? Is it even a file format, or is it possible they were simply storing various pieces of data related to your project in various places in backend DBs?

Says in the article “the Fable file format is not transferable to other platforms.”

Re: Fable is winding down

#15

Post by sunir »

oidar wrote: post #5

The app is built, why not just let it simmer for awhile. Are the costs of running it greater than the money it brings in?

Yes. The app costs. The insurance costs. The franchise tax costs. The accounting costs. The legal costs.

Re: Fable is winding down

#16

Post by webstrand »

sentientslug wrote: post #14
tsimionescu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Fable using a well-known format, or is it a proprietary format specific to the app ? If it's proprietary, would it make any sense to export it directly? Is it even a file format, or is it possible they were simply storing various pieces of data related to your project in various places in backend DBs?

Says in the article “the Fable file format is not transferable to other platforms.”

So export a structured dump of all relevant data and leave it up to someone else to decipher.

Re: Fable is winding down

#17

Post by henning »

> However, by the time we started to take Fable to market, AI was beginning to challenge the very nature of software itself

No it didn't. ChatGPT spitting out snippets of broken shit where you have to tell it exactly what you want and think through the entire architecture yourself is not a challenge to the nature of software. Especially older models that were even worse than the current 2024 ones.

Also, AI-generated code is still code. The underlying hardware still works the same.

Re: Fable is winding down

#19

Post by jwr »

invaderzirp wrote: post #12
notpushkin wrote: post #6

> On November 15, 2024, the Fable product will be shut down. All users will no longer be able to sign up, log in, or access files. All customer data and project files will be permanently deleted [...] > We recommend you look through your Fable files and export your projects off the platform (e.g. to mp4, gif, lottie… etc). I genuinely am at a loss for words here. Somebody sat down and decided that giving you your pro…

This shouldn't be surprising anymore. This has happened every week since 2010. This is the VC cycle, and it happens over and over and over and over and over again. In fact, I'm sure there's some flashy new thing on the front page right now that will have its own corresponding "goodbye" thread in 2-10 years, and everyone will get screwed by that, too. We can lament the current state of affairs, but let's not pretend i…

I run a solo bootstrapped SaaS. When people sometimes ask me whether I think this is a stable business, I tell them that with a VC-funded company, it's almost certain that there will be an outcome in several years that will not be good for customers. VC-funded companies go bankrupt, get acqui-hired, or get strategically acquired most of the time, and all these outcomes are bad for customers. The only outcome which is slightly less negative is going public, but very few companies reach that stage, and even then you get endless feature creep and progressive ensh*ttification (like with Dropbox, for example).

Self-funded sustainable businesses can be much more stable in the long term.

Re: Fable is winding down

#20

Post by ratedgene »

Huh, it's interesting the supposition is that AI tools are the future, therefore they're unable to compete in time especially when they seemed perfectly poised to adopt that strategy.

Why wouldn't they use that to sell another round to bridge?

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