From their terms:
> You must be 18 years of age or older and reside in the United States or any of its territories to use the Services
In hindsight, excluding 95.3% of the world from using their product may have been a mistake.
Fable is winding down
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Fable is winding down
#42The app is built, why not just let it simmer for awhile. Are the costs of running it greater than the money it brings in?
It's a great reason why webapps suck. A licensed local app would be great here, as the customer wouldn't lose value when Fable disappears. Yet now customers lose all value. Great. So frustrating as a user.
Webapps will work locally soon. Say hello to OPFS https://web.dev/articles/origin-private-file-system. Works surprisingly good, see this demo app https://fink2.onrender.com/
Re: Fable is winding down
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Wouldn’t the low credibility VCs, who don’t care about customers being thrown under the bus, be displaced by higher credibility VCs over time?
Why?
Most people (as in 99.9%) don't give a shit about venture capital and don't follow it at all. I would guess that most people (as in >50%) couldn't even give you a half-way accurate definition of it.
If you're buying enterprise software you're more likely to know that VC exists but you're not any more likely to care about it. None of the people writing 5-7 figure enterprise software checks are tracking which VCs are at which firm when, and who invested in what, and what company had a negative client impact when, and all that. And even if you were tracking it what are the odds that you'll need the same software 5 or 10 years later when it might be relevant to the decision?
Things evolve based on evolutionary pressures only and the VC world is too disconnected from its negative impacts to feel any pressure from them.
Put another way, credibility (from the standpoint of the customer) does not positively or negatively impact a VC in any way.
Re: Fable is winding down
#44> 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…
I think it says more about us that we are at a loss for words or shocked that a startup goes under and its unwinding is messy. It is neither a big deal, nor is it particularly unethical that this should happen. Caveat emptor. This type of reaction should be reserved for real catastrophes like a cancer diagnosis, a war, the death of a loved one, etc. Have we all become so fragile that something as minor as a startup w…
This is a website full of startup people, a startup going under with a messy shutdown is something I would expect this audience to be upset about.
> This type of reaction should be reserved for real catastrophes like a cancer diagnosis, a war, the death of a loved one, etc.
Why are you on here lecturing us? Shouldn't you be out saving the world or something important? Or at least lecturing politicians?
Re: Fable is winding down
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Wouldn’t the low credibility VCs, who don’t care about customers being thrown under the bus, be displaced by higher credibility VCs over time?
I think it depends on a lot of factors.
I think the biggest issue would be the most "successful" VCs aka the ones that make the most money, have the most money to invest in other companies.
If they can make the most return on their investment by fucking over customers than they would have a greater impact.
I suppose if we had the ability to "pierce the VC veil" we could see who the main VCs are and choose weather or not to use a product based on their track record.
Re: Fable is winding down
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
When a VC-backed company shuts down, it's usually because they weren't growing. You can only get to the next round of funding if you're still growing—otherwise you run out of runway. I don't think profit plays a big role.
Profit plays the biggest role, growth is secondary. Another round of funding is only necessary if they aren't profitable enough to sustain themselves on their own. Although, as I think about it, maybe as an AI company nobody ever expected them to ever get to profitability so the only way to continue their existence was through continued funding.
IMO the biggest detriment of VC-backed companies is that they can still get killed when they're profitable because they're just not profitable enough.
You found a company and own 100%. You get investment and bring on partners, you set aside 20% for employee shares, etc. All of a sudden there's a dozen owners and nobody owns 50%. You're profitable in the sense that everyone's payroll clears and you're making rent, with money left over, but it's not enough to invest in anything big, and the investors won't put up anything more because your growth has stalled.
Every investor who was previously your "partner" will be trying to shut the company down and sell it for parts.
VCs don't make their money by having a portfolio of companies throwing off $200k/yr in profit to a dozen different investors.
Re: Fable is winding down
#47It 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.
This is what happens when massive amounts of free money slosh around courtesy of ZIRP. Question is: will everybody rush to join whatever new darling graces the front page? Or will they finally learn their lesson?
This seems like a weird comment to make a throwaway for :)
Re: Fable is winding down
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a great reason why webapps suck. A licensed local app would be great here, as the customer wouldn't lose value when Fable disappears. Yet now customers lose all value. Great. So frustrating as a user.
Yep. I lament the loss of native, local apps all the time (and the prevalence of "always online" local apps - I've seen LoB apps that were promising, native apps only to find out they won't run offline because the app does a license check online at startup and will refuse to launch without a connection). Everything as SaaS web apps is just yet another chapter in the enshittification of tech.
> I've seen LoB apps that were promising, native apps only to find out they won't run offline because the app does a license check online at startup and will refuse to launch without a connection
Isn't this fine as long as this is the only thing it does?
"Making sure this has been paid for" seems completely legitimate.
Re: Fable is winding down
#49From their terms: > You must be 18 years of age or older and reside in the United States or any of its territories to use the Services In hindsight, excluding 95.3% of the world from using their product may have been a mistake.
What's the TAM of people who want a web-app vector graphics and animation tool? It's certainly less than 8 billion.
Re: Fable is winding down
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a great reason why webapps suck. A licensed local app would be great here, as the customer wouldn't lose value when Fable disappears. Yet now customers lose all value. Great. So frustrating as a user.
Webapps will work locally soon. Say hello to OPFS https://web.dev/articles/origin-private-file-system . Works surprisingly good, see this demo app https://fink2.onrender.com/
Sadly, I don’t think Safari or Firefox are close to shipping OPFS. https://caniuse.com/?search=File%20System