You can literally install a fully private instance of Github on your own network for less than the cost of a laptop per person†. That is the absolute most expensive option Github offers, we took it, and we don't feel remotely "screwed". This whole thread is a perfect illustration of why HN is a terrible place to get pricing advice.
Salary is the gating cost factor for software companies. For things that actually work and actually improve the working day, it is simply not worth dickering over things that cost tiny fractions of what fully loaded headcount costs.
Now, it's absolutely true that not everything that costs $Enterprise/yr really works or improves lives, and you can't go shouldering these costs willy-nilly. But some things clearly are worth it. For a lot of companies, Github is one of those things.
If it's not worth that much for you, Github isn't screwing you. They simply aren't selling to you. Go somewhere else. But think about not hurling epithets at them, just because they aren't catering to people who derive less value from them than their core customers.
† (Depending on how often you refresh laptops; we do it a lot.)
If you are able to do this kind of infrastructure work, there are literally multiple git managers which are free (libre and gratis!) and just as powerful for developers. My employer, OSUOSL, deploys an internal gitolite and we do just fine.
Gitolite only does a tiny fraction of what github offers. The two really aren't directly comparable. Gitolite is purely a code hosting system, github allows you to collaborate, view code with an awesome viewer, make comments and much more.
Salary is the gating cost factor for software companies. For things that actually work and actually improve the working day, it is simply not worth dickering over things that cost tiny fractions of what fully loaded headcount costs.
Now, it's absolutely true that not everything that costs $Enterprise/yr really works or improves lives, and you can't go shouldering these costs willy-nilly. But some things clearly are worth it. For a lot of companies, Github is one of those things.
If it's not worth that much for you, Github isn't screwing you. They simply aren't selling to you. Go somewhere else. But think about not hurling epithets at them, just because they aren't catering to people who derive less value from them than their core customers.
† (Depending on how often you refresh laptops; we do it a lot.)