Clothes have never been cheaper. These days a t-shirt is often cheaper than a decent cup of tea in a cafe. The wonders of capitalism. At least that is how it is often described. And when you point at the underpaid, gruesome labor that people in poorer regions of the planet have to do to […]
In Thrall to Scarcity
As I’ve talked about in this space in the past, I’ve been coming to some conclusions about free software (open source, or whatever you want to call it): the economics of it, like anythi…
The Tyranny of the Marginal User
why consumer software gets worse, not better, over time
Tren Griffin on Twitter / X
Software isn't Ending.Hoping the expense of creating software creates pricing power has always been a triumph of hope over experience.If a software business doesn't have attributes like network effects that create pricing power, its life can be nasty, brutish and short. pic.twitter.com/yzTVAdG2xb— Tren Griffin (@trengriffin) June 2, 2024
The Money In Open-Source Software | TechCrunch
It’s no secret that open-source technology -- once the province of radicals, hippies and granola eaters -- has gone mainstream. According to industry estimates, more than 180 young companies that give away their software raised roughly $3.2 billion in financing from 2011 to 2014. Despite the growing popularity of open-source software, though, many open-source companies are not financially healthy.
Why We Can't Have Nice Software - Andrew Kelley
The problem with software is that it's too powerful. It creates so much wealth so fast that it's virtually impossible to not distribute it.
Software Needs To Be More Expensive
Software, like coffee, is too artificially cheap, and we need to make it more expensive. I have one suggestion for how to do that.
Not all good products make good businesses - The Intercom Blog
It's easy to assume that solving a real problem with a good product magically creates a successful software business. Sadly that’s never guaranteed.
Money as Message | Andreessen Horowitz
Network effects — where a product or service becomes more valuable to its users as more people use it — are one of the key ways software businesses maintain a better product and more defensible market position. This is especially true of messaging apps like WeChat — which, as I’ve argued before, is not just...
Code Is Cheap Now. Software Isn’t.
The barrier to entry for building software has collapsed. The barrier to building something that matters hasn’t moved an inch.
The $70B Open Source Software Paradox
It’s no news that over the last 10-15 years, particularly noticeable in the last 5 years, the enterprise software industry has gradually transformed from complex, expensive, closed-source (proprietary) software stacks to extensible/configurable,...
It’s actually open source software that's eating the world
At Lightspeed we’ve been investing aggressively in open source software (OSS) businesses for the past 10 years. Recently, we’ve seen a significant increase in entrepreneurs pitching open source startups, and we’ve also seen greater competition for these deals. We pulled together some numbers in an attempt to measure the acceleration in interest in and funding for OSS businesses in the last few years. The results were staggering even to us.
I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit
Anthropic are strongly rumored to be about to have their first profitable quarter. Stories are circulating of companies surprised at how expensive their LLM bills are becoming from usage by …
I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit
Anthropic are strongly rumored to be about to have their first profitable quarter. Stories are circulating of companies surprised at how expensive their LLM bills are becoming from usage by …
The Psychology of a Billion-Dollar Enterprise App: Why Is Slack So Habit-Forming?
Slack isn’t just another office collaboration app. The company has been called, “the fastest-growing workplace software ever.” Recent press…
Liberatory Computing
We live under a capitalist mode of computing. The tools, languages, techniques, and assumptions of digital systems are structured by economic forces that shape not just what we can do, but what we can imagine doing. By separating production from use, producing inflexible software, and slicing up computing into siloed apps, your agency is held back by a tech industry that profits from a population rendered computationally passive.
Liberatory Computing
We live under a capitalist mode of computing. The tools, languages, techniques, and assumptions of digital systems are structured by economic forces that shape not just what we can do, but what we can imagine doing. By separating production from use, producing inflexible software, and slicing up computing into siloed apps, your agency is held back by a tech industry that profits from a population rendered computationally passive.