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NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

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Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#61

Post by fragmede »

harrisi wrote: post #59
fragmede wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Vercel was founded 10 years ago, and they sell services for money, and then take that money and use that to pay people to work on various technologies; why would that make it less likely to be around in 5 years vs a person who isn't getting paid and is doing an open source project with no visual means of support? How do their bills get paid?

I'm not saying Vercel won't exist, they almost certainly will. What I mean is that the goal seems likely to be to influence how software development is done in every way possible, from deployment to client code. Vendor locking, with even more control. I'd pitch Vercel as "Heroku's growth plan but more control of everything." Maybe with a bit of EEE thrown in, but who knows.

Where's the "even more control" though? A proprietary closed source version of the same would be the other way to do it, but then it would be closed source.

If we want open source to be viable we have to support actually having businesses around it. Vercel making it easy to deploy to their servers seems like a fairly decent business model compared to some of the other options.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#62

Post by etchalon »

kelthuzad wrote: post #55
etchalon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're fundamentally missing the difference between these two frameworks.

I think that you should substantiate your claims instead of making low effort comments with zero elaboration. I've cited relevant passages from Astro's docs and I realized that it offers me the features I'm looking for, so I'm not sure what you're on about. Here are the "Key differences between Nuxt and Astro"[0] according to the docs: - Nuxt is a Vue-based SPA (single-page application). Astro sites are multi-page ap…

https://nuxt.com/docs/getting-started/server

Nuxt is a server-side JavaScript framework with a complete HTTP application stack, built on top of Nitro (which includes an even larger suite of capabilities) and H3.

https://nitro.build https://v1.h3.dev

Astro is markup generation.

They are only comparable in that "both can print markup".

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#63

Post by etchalon »

pier25 wrote: post #53
etchalon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think plain text has the best possible CWV score yet is also deficient as an alternative for Nuxt if you're dealing with Vue-based MPAs, SSG or SPAs with SSR.

Are you saying that Astro can only output plain text? If that's the case, you're completely missing the point.

There is no universe in which I'm saying Astro can only output plain text.

I am pointing out that CWV scores are irrelevant to the discussion.

You are arguing that a Miata is valid competitor to an F150, while I'm repeatably trying to explain I need to tow a horse trailer.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#64

Post by etchalon »

eclipxe wrote: post #27
MortyWaves wrote: post #4

Nuxt has always been a strange tool that doesn’t really fit well into any good use case, unless your only experience is Vue and Nuxt. Hard to see the real reason for Vercel to do this. The pessimist in me wonders if perhaps they are hoping to influence how Vue is developed in the same way they now influence how React is developed after hiring several React team members. But even that doesn’t seem that likely consider…

I actually love Nuxt. If you want all the fullstackness of Next, but without having to deal with React, it's perfect.

The "without having to deal with React" bit is crazy important.

I also think, even if Nuxt supported React, its overall architecture is just better than Next's.

Everything just seems to plug together better.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#65

Post by 9dev »

etchalon wrote: post #26
codybontecou wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vercel benefits from moving as much of the logic to the server (their paid services) as possible.

Vercel benefits from not letting other, better, cheaper architectures like Cloudflare Workers get better treatment than them from popular framework authors.

That holds true now. Tomorrow, when they can steer the direction of all frameworks, they—and their investors by extension—might notice that Next projects generate the most revenue on average. Now they have an incentive to favor Next; not even by outright harming the other frameworks, but maybe by strategic neglect. Maybe a new web platform feature is first supported here, while integrations stall elsewhere; maybe the backlog is sorted differently; it doesn’t matter.

The point is that you’re just seeing business strategy aligned with our interest, but that can, and will, change.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#66

Post by harrisi »

fragmede wrote: post #61
harrisi wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying Vercel won't exist, they almost certainly will. What I mean is that the goal seems likely to be to influence how software development is done in every way possible, from deployment to client code. Vendor locking, with even more control. I'd pitch Vercel as "Heroku's growth plan but more control of everything." Maybe with a bit of EEE thrown in, but who knows.

Where's the "even more control" though? A proprietary closed source version of the same would be the other way to do it, but then it would be closed source. If we want open source to be viable we have to support actually having businesses around it. Vercel making it easy to deploy to their servers seems like a fairly decent business model compared to some of the other options.

I would love if Vercel paid all the people in the teams I mentioned earlier, told them to do whatever they want, and checked in only to make sure they had enough snacks. But that's probably not the case. Vercel employs these people. To some degree, simplistically, the employees are there to further the goals of the company.

I don't claim to know their plans. I've never been in charge of a multibillion dollar company. I just think I have a vague idea of what their general strategy is, and I don't love it.

I'll also say that I definitely want open source projects to succeed. I don't know how they can in a great way in a capitalist system. So maybe this is, from my standpoint, the best of a bad situation. I still think it's worth pointing out and paying attention to from a free software and business position.

Also just want to say thanks for what seems to be a genuine discussion in good faith.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#67

Post by 9dev »

tomrod wrote: post #47
9dev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s awful. Vercel has pretty much a monopoly on the hybrid framework space now, and it’s going to ruin everything. NEVER did a monopoly do any good to anyone but its holder. Props to Vercel, I guess. Enjoy your champagne. Increased the share holder value, job well done! Clap, clap.

Moat's not deep, this doesn't make it much better.

That shallow moat sure made them a few millions richer than you or me.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#68

Post by sensanaty »

danielroe wrote: post #24

Nuxt maintainer here. there's lots to say here, but from my point of view, Vercel's backing Nuxt largely _because_ of our open vision. our open approach isn't an optional extra. it's a core value we all share on the team - and indeed, I think, is as close to a core value of the web as I know. we've pioneered cross-framework adapters and the provider pattern in all we build and there is no way we are changing directio…

That's nice in theory, but what happens when the inevitable comes and Vercel's grubby little VC hands start squeezing their yoke in order to extract money out of the ecosystem? They're on their Series E last time I checked, that's a lot of VCs who are going to want to cash in on things sooner rather than later.

Enshittification is inevitable when VC is involved in any way whatsoever, so this doesn't strike me as a good thing. I can already see the future where we're getting convoluted features no one ever asked for for the sole reason of inflating Vercel's hosting costs, as was and is the case with Next and how they completely took over React to the point that even the official React docs mention Next before any alternative like Vite. Hell, knowing the VC playbook, I wouldn't be surprised if in a year's time they decide to shutter Nuxt completely and force everyone to move into the abomination that is Next.

This isn't a swipe against you guys, I'm thrilled to see OS devs like you who truly deserve all the success in the world get that success, I'm just not convinced that a VC-funded company with a dubious history & track record monopolizing the entire frontend framework landscape is a good thing. Thankfully Evan seems to still be independent and as such Vue will continue being independent, but it's a bit worrying that it's basically the only one.

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#69

Post by sensanaty »

joshdavham wrote: post #52
softfalcon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embrace, extend, extinguish… Tale as old as… well, the 60’s… but still, it’s an old tale.

Could you expand on this a little? Specifically, how do you think "Embrace, extend, extinguish…" could apply to this situation?

Vercel's playbook with Next so far has been to make convoluted features that exist solely to pad out how much people spend on hosting costs. They also make sure that hosting it anywhere but Vercel comes with footguns, even though theoretically you can host your Next app anywhere you want (and it's gotten better recently solely because of backlash). See https://opennext.js.org/ for example.

They've been so successful with this in fact, that when you check the actual official React documentation, Next is the offering being advertised prominently [1] (I see they've actually restructured this a bit, a few months ago Next was literally the only thing mentioned here, I assume because of backlash they changed it to what it is now).

I have no doubts they'll do the same with Nuxt, demanding they implement features that solely exist to pad out hosting costs while providing next to no actual benefits to end users and devs, and I have no doubts they'll have the same shenanigans as they do with Next where hosting on anything other than Vercel gives you a broken experience. As an actual Extinguish tactic, I can even see them fully shuttering Nuxt in favor of Next. After all, they now have a monopoly over the most popular frontend meta frameworks (Next, Svelte/Kit, Nuxt, Astro) and paying people to maintain all of that is a lot more expensive than just having the 1 (that already has a huge market share to begin with). Thankfully for now it's MIT and fully OSS, so there's a ray of hope here that even if they pull some shenanigans like that, it'll continue living on independently again, but I don't trust anything that has been touched by VC money as far as I can throw it.

https://react.dev/learn/creating-a-react-app

Re: NuxtLabs is joining Vercel

#70

Post by danielroe »

sensanaty wrote: post #68
danielroe wrote: post #24

Nuxt maintainer here. there's lots to say here, but from my point of view, Vercel's backing Nuxt largely _because_ of our open vision. our open approach isn't an optional extra. it's a core value we all share on the team - and indeed, I think, is as close to a core value of the web as I know. we've pioneered cross-framework adapters and the provider pattern in all we build and there is no way we are changing directio…

That's nice in theory, but what happens when the inevitable comes and Vercel's grubby little VC hands start squeezing their yoke in order to extract money out of the ecosystem? They're on their Series E last time I checked, that's a lot of VCs who are going to want to cash in on things sooner rather than later. Enshittification is inevitable when VC is involved in any way whatsoever, so this doesn't strike me as a go…

the best guarantee I have is that Nuxt is still independent - it's (some of) the core team who are employed by Vercel. you can see this is the case for svelte/sveltekit.

plus, as an open source project, no one _can_ shutter Nuxt. as long as we have a community, we are alive.

from another point of view, any open source project is ultimately accountable to the community, and I think that's especially true for nuxt.

at the end of the day, if sebastien isn't happy with my leadership he can replace me. (and that's _good_ - I wrote about it here: https://roe.dev/blog/governance-and-abuse)

and equally if the community aren't happy with the direction of nuxt, they can always fork it. (and that's _good_)

in fact, I think I'd say that accountability is always good.

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