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Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

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Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#251

Post by refulgentis »

freedomben wrote: post #6

Very sad to hear, I bought Tailwind UI years ago and although it was a lot more expensive than I wanted, I've appreciated the care and precision and highly recommend buying it (It's now called Tailwind Plus) even still (maybe even especially now). Mad props to Adam for his honesty and transparency. Adam if you're reading, just know that the voices criticizing you are not the only voices out there. Thanks for all you'…

Smells like unnecessary sycophancy: I grep'd Adam in every comment and every single. one. is positive and phrased like this.

I grew up on this site, from 20 year old dropout waiter in Buffalo to 37 year old ex-Googler. One of the things I'm noticing me reacting to the last year or two is a "putting on a pedestal" effect that's unnecessary.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#252

Post by patates »

simlevesque wrote: post #177
jstummbillig wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments for... somebody wanting to get paid for their work? What are you doing?

Normally you ask for payment upfront, not years after.

Nobody is asked for money years after they started using Tailwind. Nobody is being asked for money now, when they start using Tailwind.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#253

Post by quaintdev »

legitster wrote: post #181

It's insane how much AIs use Tailwind and yet the companies aren't contributing anything. It would be trivial for Anthropic or Cursor to pay something . Would it work to have a new free-use license that explicitly excludes LLMs? Make them pay royalties - you'd have to use something like public license keys. But if Spotify pays a trivial license payment for every stream - Claude could contribute something when it reco…

If they tailwind, it sets a precedent for others. They can't pay everyone.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#254

Post by dr-detroit »

refulgentis wrote: post #251
freedomben wrote: post #6

Very sad to hear, I bought Tailwind UI years ago and although it was a lot more expensive than I wanted, I've appreciated the care and precision and highly recommend buying it (It's now called Tailwind Plus) even still (maybe even especially now). Mad props to Adam for his honesty and transparency. Adam if you're reading, just know that the voices criticizing you are not the only voices out there. Thanks for all you'…

Smells like unnecessary sycophancy: I grep'd Adam in every comment and every single. one. is positive and phrased like this. I grew up on this site, from 20 year old dropout waiter in Buffalo to 37 year old ex-Googler. One of the things I'm noticing me reacting to the last year or two is a "putting on a pedestal" effect that's unnecessary.

[dead]

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#255

Post by devalexwells »

system2 wrote: post #172

Why would a CSS library turn into a company? How do they even make money while there are hundreds of alternatives? Bootstrap is more than enough for 99.99% of the projects, and it is free.

How does their stewardship of a CSS library exempt them from being a valid company? The fact that the market is competitive alone isn't justification.

I agree that it's not obvious to me how or why Tailwind should turn a profit as a business, but there are examples of other similar companies turning profits, no?

I think of Motion (formerly framer motion) for example, which is primarily an animation library: https://motion.dev/

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#256

Post by sbarre »

K0nserv wrote: post #75
sosodev wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overestimating how much people care about quality.

Oh no I'm very cynical about that.

I think perhaps the nuance in the middle here is that for most projects, the quality that professional components bring is less important.

Internal tools and prototypes, both things that quality components can accelerate, have been strong use-cases for these component libraries, just as much as polished commercial customer-facing products.

And I bet volume-wise there's way more of the former than the latter.

So while I think most people who care about quality know you can't (yet) blindly use LLM output in your final product, it's completely ok for internal tools and prototyping.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#257

Post by harryday »

bkorte wrote: post #202
simlevesque wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't ask how to do a bait and switch to offer a good free product and later ask for more money or else I'm going to make it worse. But I guess nuance is hard to understand. Also it's always funny when someone tries to look up your past instead of giving convincing arguments.

There is no bait and switch and it's ridiculous to suggest there is. They have a free product and a paid product. They've used the documentation as an awareness channel for the paid product. The paid product influences and pays for the free product. A tail as old as time. They're not asking you to buy the paid product and they're not saying they are going to make it worse. Did you even read thread? He literally says…

> A tail as old as time.

Eggcorn klaxon!

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#258

Post by beberlei »

K0nserv wrote: post #48
sosodev wrote: post #26

The paid products Adam mentions are the pre-made components and templates, right? It seems like the bigger issue isn't reduced traffic but just that AI largely eliminates the need for such things. While I understand that this has been difficult for him and his company... hasn't it been obvious that this would be a major issue for years? I do worry about what this means for the future of open source software. We've lo…

Having worked on a design system previously I think most people, especially non-frontend developers, discount how hard something like that is to build. LLMs will build stuff that looks plausible but falls short in a bunch of ways (particularly accessibility). This is for the same reason that people generate div-soup, it looks correct on the surface. EDIT: I suppose what I'm saying is that "The paid products Adam ment…

While I believe you, its an argument that artists bring forward since the beginning of art, so even many hundred years before the internet on average humankind did not value this work.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#259

Post by LogicFailsMe »

elictronic wrote: post #139
blitzar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "progress" when tech bros displace traditional workers, but it is "heartbreaking" when a tech bro gets displaced by other tech bros. Whats the 2026 version of "you should learn to code" ?

You should learn to vote for UBI?

Funded by an automation tax as proposed by Martin Ford. Not holding my breath on either count. We mustn't upset the 1,000 or so billionaires in this country in any way for they are wise and they are kind and only bad things will happen if we do.

But chin up, peasant, each and every one of us can dream of one day being a billionaire as well if only we act as wise and as kind as they do.

Re: Creators of Tailwind laid off 75% of their engineering team

#260

Post by patates »

simlevesque wrote: post #170
krainboltgreene wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a convincing argument: Pay me for some of my labor or you stop getting labor at all.

Don't tell me you're giving me something for free in the first place then. It's simple.

This attitude really tires open source maintainers enormously. They are not allowed to earn money connected to the thing they are giving away for free?

I know there may have been some weird stuff going on lately (nginx, redis, etc.) but this is not one of them.

It's okay to be confused, but please do not continue this.

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