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Fable is winding down

fable.app

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Re: Fable is winding down

#51

Post by groby_b »

samuelstros wrote: post #42
unshavedyak wrote: post #29

Earlier 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/

"Can store data" isn't "will work locally"

For one thing, it's origin-private, so take a guess how well that works when the company owning the DNS records for that origin goes out of business.

(There's also the issue with actually having an executable that can just run without any external dependencies)

Re: Fable is winding down

#52

Post by karmakaze »

bruce511 wrote: post #21

I found the "why are we closing down" to be somewhat weak. I mean, you're closing down cause you ran out of cash right? But apparently the app is beloved by customers... right? Something about AI (which seems somewhat vague...) Anyway, why not just be honest? We swung for the fences, didn't quite get there, the money is all gone, and no-one wants yo give us more... Frankly as post mortems go, this one is pretty weak.

I was wondering the same, was it a decision or a realization? I suppose the decision part is to do it now rather than later when it can get messier. I've gone down with a startup ship and it was rather pointless.

Re: Fable is winding down

#54

Post by itake »

tptacek wrote: post #39
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?

Keeping an app running requires personnel, personnel is expensive, and good personnel is unlikely to cool their heels on an EOL'd app at an EOL'd company.

It really doesn’t though. You could scale down to a 1-3 person team. Stop building new features. Keep a full stack dev on for 1year to fix bugs and the remaining team does customer support.

Hiring a contracting company for 3 mo per year to perform updates.

My guess is the decision maker doesn’t think it’s worth their time to run a business like this. Instead of rapidly shifting focus into a higher growth area, they would continue to be attached to a shrinking product

Re: Fable is winding down

#55

Post by freediver »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #36
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.

The very best example of that is the Kagi search engine which, if you spend on time of HN, looks very widely used, but actually has less than 10,000 customers.

It is the right order of magnitude, but when stats are already publiclcy available let's be accurate :)

https://kagi.com/stats

Re: Fable is winding down

#56

Post by drekipus »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #13
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.

Same, my initial reaction is shock and disgust that I was missing out on a fable mmorpg

Re: Fable is winding down

#57

Post by thewebguyd »

pc86 wrote: post #48
thewebguyd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally fine and legitimate, the problem comes in situations where you might need to launch without an active internet connection. Arguably this wasn't the best vendor in the world, but IMO there should be a grace period, i.e., must connect at least x times per months instead of at every start up.

Re: Fable is winding down

#58

Post by tptacek »

itake wrote: post #54
tptacek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping an app running requires personnel, personnel is expensive, and good personnel is unlikely to cool their heels on an EOL'd app at an EOL'd company.

It really doesn’t though. You could scale down to a 1-3 person team. Stop building new features. Keep a full stack dev on for 1year to fix bugs and the remaining team does customer support. Hiring a contracting company for 3 mo per year to perform updates. My guess is the decision maker doesn’t think it’s worth their time to run a business like this. Instead of rapidly shifting focus into a higher growth area, they w…

A 1-3 person team in the US is a half million per annum proposition, and, again, even if you could make the payroll, you have to retain qualified engineers for a role that has zero growth potential.

Re: Fable is winding down

#59

Post by MichaelZuo »

pc86 wrote: post #43
MichaelZuo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A lack of credibility is an easy excuse for asking for big enterprise discounts, on well everything offered.

The highly credible VCs should be able to positively influence the negotiated pricing, at least by association.

Re: Fable is winding down

#60

Post by iLoveOncall »

freediver wrote: post #55
iLoveOncall wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very best example of that is the Kagi search engine which, if you spend on time of HN, looks very widely used, but actually has less than 10,000 customers.

It is the right order of magnitude, but when stats are already publiclcy available let's be accurate :) https://kagi.com/stats

Ah yeah, my information is probably from a year+ ago since they passed 20K only in January 2024
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