I imagine this was not surprising. This had to have been well-considered by the teams in the first round of pricing. I'm guessing they just didn't want it to be a blocker for release and the implementation is now catching up.

There should be a poison pill for these types of services that give the guy from Pinboard the first right of refusal.

The way my favorite boss told me, it was "don't let `great` be the enemy of `good enough.`"

Good enough is how everything went to shit (enshitification). "It's an MVP? Good enough, ship it and bolt on features no one wants." Personally, I am very tired of "good enough." I wish we built great things.

> "It's an MVP? Good enough, ship it

Nothing wrong with this. Don't over invest in an idea before it's proven.

> bolt on features no <customer> wants."

This is the enshittification.

"Enshitification" is probably the most self-sabotaging term we could think of; in terms of how it makes us look like whining teenagers. I will never use it in polite conversation; which would ironically be a tech company's greatest goal for if we had a word.

But optics aside, this also ignores the problem that many of these businesses were not sustainable and were never sustainable. They are heading downhill, partially because they never had any ground to stand on. If we want to see less of this behavior, we should stop allowing the blitzscale strategy of running a loss to gain marketshare.

This is also why the claim of "greed" or "enshitification" falls on deaf ears for them. They could easily say: "No, we lit billions on fire as an investment to keep it free and grow market share; we're now asking for some returns on that investment. We're not adding a Pro plan, we were paying for the Pro plan previously. Be thankful for how long it lasted, and how much money you saved."

You bring up some good points. I guess I was too absolute in my statement as I didn't intend to imply it was the only problem. Given that, Windows gaining ads (nevermind the number of settings panels/windows, etc), games being released broken or loot box driven, google search once being good and now being ad driven, and a myriad of other problems have caused the downfall as well. So the big players are part of the problem too.

No doubt; Windows gaining ads is the most egregious form; because it combines advertising with an upfront payment.

I think many of the worst offenders, and so much of the problem, would go away if we combined a payment with a mandatory ad-free experience, for any bundled software. Buy a TV, no ads allowed on the TV itself. Buy a computer, no ads allowed on Windows itself. Buy a Mac, no ads allowed in Apple News, should it be bundled. If it's truly free software that the customer did not directly or indirectly pay for, then ads are permitted; but the moment there's a payment, it's over. You can have Free with Ads, you can have Paid with No Ads, but never both.

That would not stop Discord from getting worse, or other services like them; but not allowing a paid + ad combo would solve most of the painful problems.

> No, we lit billions on fire as an investment to keep it free and grow market share

This is a form of price dumping and it should be illegal. Actually I'm confused as to why this isn't considered to be illegal already becuase I thought we had laws against this.

It's not just newer unsustainable companies. There are plenty of businesses that have been around for decades that are now engaging in these enshittifying practices (for dearth of a better term). Big box appliances like washers/dryers, fridges. Vehicle manufacturers (BMW and their subscription service bullshit), we're fast approaching a world where even doing an oil change will have to be done by the dealership/authorized 3rd party.

These Ivy League MBAs have been getting taught how much money companies have been leaving on the table and they are infecting every industry.

Thanks for being a crucial part of this crucial part of my life, Tom.

Pretty unrelated, but if you are a developer and don't have a lifetime SDF.org membership, you should.

Why SDF over a free limitless VPS?

I joined SDF last year and was disappointed. I was willing to tolerate the limitations (eg. can't change your shell unless "validated"; can't even 'touch' a file...) in exchange for community but it's a ghost town. To make matters worse, IRC for new users is only available on a Sunday!

I would love to give it another shot but I don't understand what its value is in 2025.

I had never heard of that. What's your use-case for it?

It basically dates back to when having access to a Unix system meant that you needed to be at a university or a big employer or some such. These guys provided one for free.

Currently you can get some basic email, web hosting, etc. for a one time $1 donation. You can get more for a one time $36 donation.

They also have internal “forums” and chat and such as well as offering a bunch of related services like VPS, dial up, VPN, a Minecraft server, etc. Realistically, you can get a lot more for a lot less with modern hosts but between nostalgia and the limited environment having a particular kind of charm, it is kinda neat.

Right. Some kind of community, in a way.

So this seems to be a membership to access a remote Unix system and share it with others?

Dave Kellogg is definitely someone worth listening to.

This seems overly-catastrophizing to me. I don't deny it rings true for many, but I think some of the statements here really depend on your team and company.

A good dev manager would be thrilled to have a senior like you on their team. Rockstars are great, but bedrock employees are better.

The password to the system was "BRIS," the name of the vendor.

I laughed when I read that, too. Like locking up that “$2MM dollars of information” in a vault secured with a piece of string.

Beware dangling modifiers!

> I built a failed startups goods website and named it VcSubsidized.com

Is better written as: I built a website named VcSubsidized.com for failed startups goods