
Being 37signals for free - jamongkad
http://wisdump.com/business/being-37signals-for-free/
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mdakin
Companies are able to thrive by developing and running such "simple" systems
because of characteristics of the typical consumer and the reality that even
"simple" systems tend to be more complex and difficult to implement/run than
they appear from the outside.

The typical person lacks the time and skill to install open-source clones of
web applications. The typical person does not even have a server on which to
install those applications!

Running a high-quality, reliable service is difficult. There will always be
nitty-gritty pain-in-the-butt performance and reliability issues with anything
that gets popular and thus needs to scale. Solving those problems requires
compensation of some sort.

These factors are what enable companies like 37signals to exist even if/when
they are cloned by an open-source project.

Then there also is the continued innovation that happens while the clones are
busy playing catch-up, and the loyalty happy customers feel towards their
craftsmen toolmakers.

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Readmore
I think the author answers his own question in this post:

"There are tons of new 'Diggs' popping up because development time is much
shorter with online websites and applications than what we are used to seeing
with desktop apps."

Yes there are a ton of Digg clones but none of them are Digg. Cloning
something doesn't make it popular, it just makes it a clone. If you copied
37Signals products, even if copied them perfectly, it still wouldn't hurt them
much. The people who are using that software don't have the time to host their
own solution, and they don't want to mess with ads. Besides they are already
using the 37Signals products, you would have to have something that made your
product better to get people to switch.

We all know how much better OS X is over Windows and look how hard it is to
get those people to switch. The same thing applies here.

~~~
aston
You've completely omitted the real reason people stay with Digg: network
effects. The more people using a Digg-like site, the more valuable it is. Digg
clones don't have the traffic, so of course they can't compete.

Switching from Windows to Mac is more of an issue of legacy. If all of the
software you like using works only on Windows, and if all of the people in
your organization only know Windows, it's going to be difficult (costly) for
you to switch.

How are these related to 37signals products? Not very. There are no network
effects involved, so that's out. And while you may have a legacy with
37signals, it's such a new product, your organization could probably afford to
switch to a competitor without much cost.

The question posed in the article is a good one, then, since if you could
match feature for feature and you could do it for cheaper, you'd beat
37signals at their own game.

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divia
I'm pretty sure that the project management software activeCollab was written
to be a free Basecamp. Up until now, it's been open source and peopele have
been installing it on their own servers. (Interestingly enough, the next major
release will be split into a free and commercial version, somewhat like
Basecamp.)

~~~
vlad
This article is from April 5, 2006. I think you're right. The developer of
activeCollab is doing this. I think it says somewhere on the activeCollab web
site the developer originally got started because of that exact blog post.

~~~
samb
and interestingly enough, it seems that activeCollab found it much harder to
clone than initially thought.

from the web site, "activeCollab is still under heavy development, but you can
download activeCollab 0.7.1 and give it a test run."

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eli
A whole lot of of work went into making those 37signals apps seem simple.

If you think you can bang them out in a weekend or two then you're either the
best programmer I've ever met, or you're in for a heckuva surprise.

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palish
Originally I was going to pose the question: Why do people want to cut other
people's source of revenue?

But the answer came back to me just as quickly: Because they can.

But can they? One theory for the startup world might be: No matter what your
product is, you need to have barriers to entry.

I'll think on it.. It seems to be worth considering how one might actively
place barriers of entry so that others can't just copy you.

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dawie
Making something simple is away harder and takes way longer than making
something complex.

