
Entitlement and Acquisition - ryannielsen
http://mattgemmell.com/2012/07/21/entitlement-and-acquisition/
======
kylec

        Sparrow’s acquisition is a success story. Indie devs make a great product,
        build a customer-base, and are rewarded with a buy-out from a big company
        and they get new jobs with that company. It might not be what your
        particular goal or end-game is, but it is a success.
    

From an end-user perspective, having software you use and rely on on a daily
basis completely abandoned is not a successful outcome. The Sparrow devs may
have won, but Sparrow users have lost.

~~~
huhtenberg
Since when does "put in maintenance mode" equal to "completely abandoned"?

~~~
OmegaHN
It's like the word "indefinitely". It may mean "we can start it back up
anytime!" from a dictionary sense, but it's actual use is that "it's probably
not coming back".

"Maintenance" means that they will fix major issues that the paying customers
are legally entitled to (such as bugs that make the app unusable). They will
do nothing beyond that.

~~~
emeltzer
What law entitles users to bug fixes for major issues?

~~~
repsilat
Nobody is arguing this is a legal problem, they're arguing that this is a
moral problem.

Users did buy into the Sparrow thing because they expected updates/maintenance
etc etc. Their purchase was contingent on the ongoing support of the service,
they _would not_ have bought a product they thought would be discontinued.

Now, you can argue that they should have known that the service might
disappear without warning, that they should never have used it if there was
the possibility of them being bought, but where does that leave us? Should
people just stop buying popular apps created by small companies? Should people
insist on a legally binding "community promise" to open-source a product if
active development stops?

This also neglects the fact that users are statistically credulous - as a
group they're simply not rational enough to seriously consider the possibility
of the developer being acquired. The Sparrow guys had to have known this, so
they either did something unethical when they sold the app or they did
something unethical when they sold the company. The blog post says that it is
fine to take advantage of them for their credulity, but that's not an ethical
position, that's just Ayn Rand.

~~~
18pfsmt
_> Nobody is arguing this is a legal problem, they're arguing that this is a
moral problem._

I'm not sure what you are talking about. The comment above the one to which
you are replying states:

 _"Maintenance" means that they will fix major issues that the paying
customers are legally entitled to (such as bugs that make the app unusable)._

It's almost like you completely ignored this to make some point about Ayn
Rand.

 _> Now, you can argue that they should have known that the service might
disappear without warning_

What service? We are talking about a downloadable application that is locally
stored on the user's device until they delete it. It will not stop working.
I've been using an old version of Thunderbird for a while now simply because I
haven't felt like upgrading and setting up all my GPG stuff again.

These things may seem like nitpicks, but I think the nuance here is important
and is being skipped over in favor of complaining about something. The
reaction is way overblown in my opinion.

~~~
repsilat
> The comment above the one to which you are replying states:

>> ...fix major issues that the paying customers are legally entitled to...

Ah craps. You're right, I skipped over that comment and assumed the one I was
replying to was making a different point. I look like an ass, and it serves me
right. I'd delete or edit the post to make a retraction, but HN has decided
that it's important to keep my mistakes around for posterity.

------
hxa7241
The whole of the author's argument, and its weakness, in four words:

> It’s fine. It’s business.

Why is this inadequate? Because whether something is 'business' is not the
beginning and the end of whether it is a good thing to do. It is merely one
aspect.

The market is not a perfectly accurate and complete representation for all of
human wishes and behaviour. So we cannot delegate to it as the final arbiter
on questions of what should or should not be done.

No, the whole issue is really the other way around. What currently happen to
be the rules of the business game are not grounds for telling people what they
should or should not want. What people want is grounds for examining how the
market and business are failing to work well -- and then pondering how that
could be improved. That seems the more reasonable, just, and interesting
avenue to pursue.

~~~
k-mcgrady
The "It's business" attitude has been popping up a lot. Nobody seems to be
making the distinction between good business and bad business. Everything I've
seen around the Sparrow sale has been bad business. The told users they were
working on push notifications and an iPad app. They had a half price sale last
weekend! And even though they were charging a premium price and clearly had a
sustainable business (they were one of the top grossing apps and were highly
rated and publisised) they still screwed their customers.

There was a good way to do this. Finish push notification and iPad support
before discontinuing development (i.e. keep your promises). Don't have a half
price sale days before you are acquired without informing the users the
product will be discontinued.

~~~
ChrisLTD
As someone who bought Sparrow during their sale last week, I feel ripped off.
I don't think they owe me free updates forever, but I would have liked to have
known that it was a fire sale.

~~~
rhizome
Did you use a credit card (likely)? Charge-back.

~~~
ChrisLTD
I got it through the Mac App Store.

~~~
acdha
Many people have reported getting refunds

------
ryanisinallofus
"Cue predictable squawking on the internet."

And cue predictable anti-squawking squawking on the internet. The internet is
a place for communication and people are allowed to express themselves. It's
not entitlement. The entire goal of a software company is to make software
people love so much they will complain when you take it away.

Congrats to Google for a smart talent buy, and the Sparrow team for catching
the notice of Google and building something people will miss.

Now there is a clear market gap for someone else to reinvent email clients.
Again.

------
wpietri
He's got a point, but it feels like nutpicking to me, and a bit of attacking a
straw man.

I don't think sensible people are arguing that the Sparrow team don't have a
_legal right_ to shut down or sell their company as they please. The
discussion is over something subtler.

When I'm building something for my users, I see myself as in collaboration
with them. And it feels the same to me on the user side. I'm not legally
obligated to take an hour to write up a good bug report for a product I like.
And I'm certainly not entitled to my usual hourly rate when I file the bug
report. I do it because we're up to something together; capitalism is just the
mechanism by which we make that sustainable and equitable.

I'm not a Mac user, so I've never even seen Sparrow, much less used it. But in
their shoes, I wouldn't have just left my users in the lurch. I would have
tried to find somebody to take over the product, or open-sourced it. Not
because I was obligated, but because service to the users was the spirit in
which I would have started the project.

~~~
gfodor
It's hard to claim he's attacking a strawman when every point he makes has
_tweets demonstrating what he's talking about_.

~~~
xanados
Straw man is not the best concept to evaluate arguments in the world of tweets
where every potential argument can be exemplified without nuance or detail by
140 characters. If you are considering writing an essay (or ascertaining the
truth of a situation) you should be focused on the best possible argument your
opponent could be making, even if it's better than the argument they ARE
making. The best possible argument they could make is a better representation
of the reality you actually face (i.e. the reality as distinct from the
argument you are having; the real reality that you want to come to have an
understanding of, and doesn't care that you are arguing about it).

I personally don't think this article addressed AT ALL the best or most
nuanced arguments mounted by the the opponents to Sparrow's actions, and I say
this as someone who hadn't heard of Sparrow before today and thus doesn't have
much of a dog in this fight (Although I am _generally_ predisposed to the
notion that people can do whatever they want with their own apps).

------
bigfrakkinghero
I don't really like the tone of this article.

I think the sparrow team did what was best for them, and congratulations to
them for a successful exit. Goodness knows I'd do the same if I were in there
position.

I think what's most disheartening about these types of situations is that as a
consumer they make me less and less likely to support startups. Sure, a team
like this doesn't "owe" you anything -- you purchase their software and that's
the end of the transaction... but if you're going to invest your time and
energy into learning, adopting, and loving their product/ecosystem you want to
believe that it's got a future. It's a shame that the frequency of these
acquisitions (and subsequent shutdowns) erodes consumer confidence in small
companies that make great products. Why bother getting yourself hooked on a
new product if there's a decent chance it won't be around in another year?

To be fair, Google's current culling of its products shows that this isn't
just a small company problem. But I have confidence that GMail will still be
around for the foreseeable future. Same for Apple Mail. Same for Outlook. They
might not be as good, but at least you can be confident that if you learn
their ins and outs it they'll probably still be around in two years.

------
creativityhurts
I think people are frustrated about this and feel betrayed because they were a
great indie dev team that made a great product and the users loved them and
their product and supported them by purchasing and recommending their product
from the beginning, despite the lack of features. Customers trusted them
because they thought that the indie dev team will continue to be focused on
improving the app and creating versions for other platforms (iPad, Windows
etc) and now, boom, it's over.

The author of the blog post focuses too much on the money. It's not really
about the 10 or 3 bucks. I was an early adopter of Sparrow and I literally
jumped out of my chair when I read that the iPhone Sparrow app was released,
because that almost completed my email workflow. Now Sparrow plays a big part
in my workflow and I KNOW that the iPad app will never come out and that they
won't release any new features or improvements for new iOS and OSX versions.
I'm not frustrated about paying those 13 bucks or so but because I will have
to stop using an app that fits so well in my workflow and start looking again
for alternatives. Which is not a tragedy in the end and as a developer and
startup enthusiast I'm actually pretty happy for the Sparrow team.

We tend to get too attached to these startups and it's painful to see them get
acquired by the big players but it looks like it's a trend. It's getting
harder and harder to be an early-adopter, to support a product/startup with
money, data and feedback, to see it be awesome and then to watch it die.

------
zacharyvoase
Quick survey: Who paid for TextMate? Who also feels indignant about TextMate
2’s as-yet non-existence?

It’s intriguing to see the difference in reaction between Sparrow’s decisive
EoL and the drawn-out, _de facto_ EoL that TextMate experienced.

I'd just like to remind you all: Sublime Text 2 came along, and most of you
who were using TextMate switched to that, right? You’ll survive. Just stop
claiming a non-existent right to the productive output of another human,
because once upon a time you bought something from them. You still have the
version of Sparrow that you bought, and that’s what you paid for, whether you
thought that’s what you were buying or not.

N.B.: I was tele-raised by Judge Judy, I don’t take kindly to irrational
sentiment or feelings of indignation.

~~~
brianpan
I bought TextMate because it was a capable editor in the midst of many to
choose from. I don't use Sparrow but it seems much more like it's filling a
niche that's not quite filled yet and people are buying it because it's worth
it, but also because they see the potential.

A de facto EOL happens, developers get busy and projects get backburnered. But
a acquisition a lot of time means the developers are hitting their stride and
have a lot of potential.

Sentiment? Maybe. But come on....they coulda been a contenda. No one is
claiming a right. It's just a shame that the potential for _this_ is wasted.
(Not the teams' talents, but their development investment in Sparrow.)

~~~
zacharyvoase
Sure, I appreciate that it seems like a lot of foregone future
productivity/awesomeness (though we _really_ don’t know what they’ll go on to
do as part of Google). But some people _are_ actually claiming a right.

------
makecheck
Software breaks, sometimes very easily. Who knows if the next OS update or 3rd
party add-on will screw something up? Maintenance is important, and unlike
some other products you can't just look around your city and choose from 10 or
20 businesses to do a repair. With a lot of software you're screwed unless
_one person_ , the author, can keep it working.

I'm not sure this is entirely clear to the average person buying software. The
problems that software can solve may not "stay solved"; they depend on their
entire ecosystem to be stable solutions. _You aren't paying $10 to obtain
something._ You are paying $10 to _temporarily solve a problem_.

That's a little unusual among products that are sold. For instance, if you buy
a toaster, the infrastructure dependencies are pretty low; there isn't much
risk that the voltage in your wall will change and prevent the toaster from
behaving the way it was designed. Not only that but there are many regulations
governing how such a product can be made, minimizing the chance that people
buying toasters will have to replace them every 4 days. If you buy an
appliance, it tends to last. But the reasons for appliances lasting don't
really apply to software. It's bad for consumers to pretend that it's the same
type of purchase.

~~~
mikeash
Either you buy disposable software, or you buy software that comes with a
maintenance guarantee. But to buy the former and pretend it's the latter is
bizarre.

~~~
slantyyz
And don't forget that maintenance guarantees come with a price.

I don't know of any $10 apps that have that type of guarantee.

~~~
mikeash
Indeed. The very idea that $10 buys a guarantee of years of updates should be
absurd on its face.

------
callmeed
He fails to address the point, which I have mentioned on HN before, that
_aqui-hires gradually erode the confidence of future customers_.

True, there will be no shortage of indie developers. True, Sparrow didn't owe
anyone updates for life.

The problem is that each acquisition reduces trust in the minds of potential
customers. It's more the fault of Google and Facebook but I still believe its
the core problem.

~~~
rogerchucker
This is a silly developer-centric point-of-view. I will repeat as I have said
before - people for the most part invest in an app for the service it
provides. In Sparrow's case it was mostly Gmail. If sparrow won't provide it
anymore, users will eventually switch to another shiny app. I have never ever
come across a person who was hesitant to buy an app just for the fear that it
would be shelved by aqui-hire some day.

~~~
blahedo
> _I have never ever come across a person who was hesitant to buy an app just
> for the fear that it would be shelved by aqui-hire some day._

Give it time. The number of consumers burned by an acquihire is still
relatively low, but it's growing. I've certainly heard people say things like,
"sure that TV series sounds great but I don't want to get into it until I know
they're not going to cancel it," having been burned by such in the past; if
the current model of acquisition continues I think it's only a matter of time
before it becomes a matter of common wisdom to avoid getting too hooked on a
app, because if it's any good its developers will just get bought out and the
app shelved.

As for "never ever", I will say that this issue is currently fuelling my own
reluctance to even bother getting a smartphone at all, because I'm working
from the assumption that any app I find particularly useful (other than the
browser itself) will just go away. So, that's one.

~~~
sigkill
I think TV series is a bit too much. I mean, even I liked Firefly but
"emotionally investing"? Come on.

On a different note, I do have a smartphone. But I hesitate as hell to buy
apps on my Android (no paid app here) for the very fear that if I suddenly
jump to another platform I'll lose everything. Of course, I'm quite new to
this "new" smartphone generation.

My previous smartphone was a S60 Symbian over 6 years ago.

~~~
rogerchucker
You should be on the lookout for apps that have versions across different
platforms or at least have a Web access.

------
zachinglis
Some incredibly valid points in here, but I think there's a middle ground.

While Matt is perfectly correct that when you pay for an app, you get the app
you paid for. But there's a very well known unwritten suggestion that you'll
get updates for 1-2 years. At which point probably they'll release a new
version, and you'll pay the upgrade fee. It's how most software seems to work.
So, people technically don't have the right to complain - there is a lot of
sense in why people are upset. And there's no real explanation from the
developers that buying their software wasn't going to lead down that route.

I think the biggest issue about the acquisition for me is the fact Sparrow
bled the product dry a week ago by having a sale and then doing this. It seems
underhanded.

And for the record, I also find it a shame that they've been acquired. I'm
happy for them to be given big wads of cash, but in a selfish way I would have
wished to seen them tackle more problems in their way - producing quality
results. I have a bad feeling as we've seen again and again, we won't be
seeing anything from Google with the calibre that they did with Sparrow.

~~~
slantyyz
When I pay more than $100 for an app, I might expect 1 year of support, but
for a $10 or $3 app, I don't. Unless you live in the third world, $10 is
disposable software.

The contention about the sale last week is just overwrought angst, as it's
still a pretty good app, and one that easily pays for itself after a couple of
weeks of use, even at full price. From the messaging on the sparrow app store
pages, they're still going to be providing bug fixes.

~~~
CJefferson
If $10 is disposable software, then I intend to stop paying for any software
except games.

The problem isn't the amount of money I spend, it's the amount of time I spend
mastering the software, and building it into my workflow.

~~~
icambron
If the Sparrow team thought they could have made a bunch more money by selling
a support contract, then presumably they would have. That means that either
they're unsavvy or you're in the minority. I'm guessing it's the latter.

------
jmduke
I don't think most people are outright antagonising Sparrow (except perhaps
for the fire sale last weekend, which seems a bit scummy.)

Most of the posts regarding this issue seem more to bemoan the landscape of
the software industry at this point, where even if you have a well-selling,
consumer-facing, high-quality app with critical phrase, it's still a rational
decision to take a buyout from a tech giant even if it means shuttering your
app.

~~~
rogerchucker
Wasn't Siri's story a similar one? They shelved all the good things after
being acquired by Apple. Did you feel similarly outraged at that time?

~~~
jmduke
I don't use Sparrow, nor did I have an iPhone before Siri was acquired, so I
didn't really feel outraged for either.

------
ta12121
Wow. This guy is a real jerk.

Why in the world is it wrong for people to feel bad when something they like
is cancelled?

~~~
leftnode
He addresses just that. Feeling bad is one reaction, feeling betrayed and
entitled to limitless updates of an app that you like is something totally
different.

~~~
OmegaHN
I haven't seen a single person being entitled or saying that they deserved
more from Sparrow. People are upset because Sparrow is being abandoned, and
"rights" or what you "deserve" has nothing to do with it. Creating a blog post
attacking fake "my rights!" arguments is just silly.

~~~
mikeash
I've seen quite a lot of people saying that. The author quotes several in his
article. If people were merely upset, that would be one thing. But people are
talking as if they deserve updates and new features.

~~~
jasonlotito
I couldn't find any quotes expecting endless updates without paying more. The
author is wrong in his approach either way. Looking at each issue in
isolation. He also incorrectly accounts for the cost to the user. It's not
just $10. It's also the time invested into learning the software, setting it
up, etc.

He also makes a bunch of assumptions (of course they asked google about open
sourcing, but google said no for example) and also skips over other serious
problems (things sparrow said they were working on for the future).

Sorry, but this article is pretty bad.

~~~
mikeash
Really? This is the very first quote he has in the article:

"Sparrow OWE me new features, since when you're buying a software produced by
a startup, you're also supporting the development."

------
javajosh
Google beat us, the users, and Sparrow let them. Google is better at
aggregating wealth than either we or Sparrow was.

That's the problem. Now, a solution.

What I think would have been interesting was an auction. Us against Google.
Google bids first. $25MM. Then, in a Kickstarter fashion, we could bid against
that, within a certain timeframe. I think this kind of "end user buy-out
protection clause" should be a standard for startups like Sparrow, looking to
both assure the userbase that they will not be pulled out from under them, and
their own team that they'll get a comfortable payout no matter what.

Granted, a weakness of this plan is that if the consumers win the auction,
what is to prevent someone else from making another offer immediately? The
auction becomes something like an extortion scheme at that point. To deal with
this the consumer side of the auction is time-limited - if the consumers win
the auction, then product improvements are assured for, oh, 3 years.

The fact is that there are still rather obvious error modes. What if the
developers sit on their hands? What recourse would the consumer bidders have?
The simple answer to this, of course, is "very little." The burden will be on
the team to show that they would like to continue to work on the project if
the consumer side makes it make financial sense.

~~~
ams6110
You're saying that there's a chance that a company who's total sales EVER are
maybe 1/10 of that $25MM offer is going to get every one of its users, who
ALREADY PAID once for the app, to pay 10X as much to keep them from being
acquired?

~~~
javajosh
I have no idea, but I like the idea of empowering people, of at least giving
them the _chance_ to control their fate. And Kickstarter shows that consumers
can aggregate some serious dough if they want to.

------
dinkumthinkum
The one by Cole Peters is the most ridiculous. People work to make money,
among other reasons. There is nothing wrong with that. We don't begrudge the
accountant, lawyer, or other people in other fields for making money. There is
this group of people in our world that looks down on the notion of making
money or have no desire to make anymore money than is required to live very
modestly in a third world country. Once I was on a thread on HN debating
wheher like $75K a year was "FU money."

It's fine to have these views but it is very much out of the mainstream and I
think it makes technical people in our field look silly to the public or
technical people in other fields.

Now yes there are good and bad ways to conduct business, perhaps it's not good
for Google to essentially abandon the software but I don't feel anyone should
begrudge the Sparrow team for going for a payday they thought was worthwhile.
Someone says there was a "firesale" last weekend, I would say if they knew
they were about to strike a deal and made an aggressive marketing strategy,
there probably is something a bit wrong about that but I don't know any of the
facts regarding that issue.

------
sskates
All I can think of after reading this thread is "don't go into the business of
selling software to consumers for $5-10".

------
lancewiggs
The reason we are angry is that the Sparrow founders (and investors and board)
failed to give enough of a damn about their customers, placing shareholders
before customers.

They have damaged their personal reputations forever with this decision.

They placed money over karma, dollars over doing awesomeness, cash over
changing the world.

I feel they just missed an opportunity to grow Sparrow to dominate email
across all platforms - an opportunity worth a lot more in both karma and
dollars, and an amazing journey as well.

In short a poor decision made for the wrong reasons.

They may help Googke change the world of email. But they have messed up a
beautiful opportunity to do so themselves and will now disappear into the
anonymous Borg.

------
Afal
This is probably the smuggest smug piece of smug literature that ever smugged.
Like I couldn't read through this properly; the smug was hurting my brain and
making me forget how to read. The whole blogpost read like he just got in an
imaginary argument in the shower and won it by being as condescending as
possible and throwing down those putdowns as he did just then.

The only way that this could have been better if it was a facebook screenshot
of him replying to someone who's upset with acquisition by writing a large
essay about how "GPL will literally kill your family" and other ad-hominems,
and then top it off by liking his own comment.

------
larrys
"Sparrow’s acquisition is a success story. Indie devs make a great product,
build a customer-base, and are rewarded with a buy-out from a big company and
they get new jobs with that company. It might not be what your particular goal
or end-game is, but it is a success."

So when you boil it down "mak[ing] a great product, build a customer-base, ...
are rewarded" with a job at google.

Therefore building the product was, essentially, like a job interview.

~~~
DominikR
Yes, with a signing bonus of a few million dollars.

------
scott_meade
Using your vast and deep pockets to terminate a threat vs. competing against
it simply doesn't sit right for many HN readers. There are some parallels here
to the outcry against patents-as-business-strategy.

------
azakai
Definitely some odd responses to this acquisition.

1\. The sparrow developers decided to accept a buyout offer. That's their
business (literally). Should they accept less money to keep their users happy?

2\. Yes, Google bought them and is killing off their product because of
strategic reasons. That's how huge corporations work, if
Google/Microsoft/Facebook/etc. didn't do that they would be at higher risk.

------
DASD
Sorry if this is a considered a highjacking but I'm curious as to why this
post is racing to the top and the post of an active HN member(cpercva) did not
get enough attention to make the front page. Colin's post is also from the
perspective of an independent developer.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4274016>

~~~
cperciva
My post was on the front page for a few minutes, then suddenly dropped down to
page 10. Presumably one or more people flagged it -- I'm not sure why, but it
happens sometimes.

------
ricardobeat
I have a pretty strong reason to be pissed off by the abandonment: there is an
_incredibly annoying_ bug[1] in Sparrow, that has been there since launch, and
now I'm sure will never be fixed. Am I "feeling entitled" to have the software
I bought work correctly?

I really don't see the point in this article. He is mad at everyone because
they don't share his lax attitude? What is he trying to prove? Gist of the
article: _they're winners, we are losers_.

[1] when you switch inboxes/labels the email list starts at a position
seemingly relative to the previous' inbox size. That means almost every time I
switch to my main inbox I'm sent back to 2009, and have to scroll all the way
back up.

------
Ensorceled
Just a few points:

1\. The cost is NOT $10, it was $10, a couple of hours of setup, including
filtering my backups, working around two bugs and filing them with Sparrow,
following up with more details.

2\. I was more annoyed with the whole "Woo hoo, we got ours! Oh, and we're
killing that product that's become an integral part of your life. But aren't
you happy for us!" announcement, than the actual sale. Well that and the last
minute sales push. That was just shitty.

3\. According to RescueTime, I spend about 6 hours a week using Sparrow. I
don't think it makes me a "jealous, confused teenager" to be a little pissed
that it just dumped me :-)

~~~
23david
Good points. I wonder how they'll feel 6 months from now. Google isn't the
best place for startup folks post-acquisition.

With a little patience, I think that they could have done better for
themselves as well as their customers. As it is, they may have done well
financially with this deal, but they've thrown their fanbase into the garbage
and it remains to be seen how they'll do at Google.

If enough people liked sparrow, there's a niche for another indie dev to step
up and clone the product... and maybe it could even begin as some kind of
kickstarter project. but this time make sure that the product has at least an
open-source version.

------
beefman
"You made a buying decision based on a promise. Really, really stupid."

Really?

~~~
ams6110
Usually. Especially with software, you should buy based on what it does now,
not what is promised. Even from big vendors. Remember how much was originally
promised for Windows Vista, and what it turned out to be?

------
kposehn
I'm happy for the Sparrow devs and that they have been able to exit for a
(presumably) attractive enough sum. What I do feel sad about is that I think
they sold too early. It feels like the Sparrow team stopped on first base,
when the ball is sailing out of the park.

------
sylvinus
To me, it boils down to this: Sparrow is a success story because its
acquisition will make tens of teams try to imitate it and innovate further and
we'll end up with some even more amazing email clients. (hopefully some of
them open source :)

~~~
fdr
Yes. When I saw this, it summons this to mind: <http://xkcd.com/743/>

I'm not sure if sparrow could have ever existed if it was open source. Maybe
it could have. Maybe it could be released that way. However, if one is into
the longevity of their choice of tools and wants to have a sense of ownership
over the tool's future, this is a suitable reminder.

Sparrow customers now have no economical route to iterate on their tool of
choice because of some plaintext forbidden to dissemination, and that is
really Too Bad, but it is not mere misfortune: it is entirely predictable.

------
eurleif
>Sparrow worked, in part, because it wasn’t open source. No, Firefox isn’t a
counterexample - it’s funded by a huge corporation.

Google? Isn't that more of a mutually beneficial business relationship than
funding? It was my understanding that Google pays Firefox to be its default
search engine, which drives traffic to Google.

Similar business models might be possible for other open source projects. For
example, I've contemplated open source forum software which would display ads
benefiting the person running the forum 80% of the time, and ads benefiting
the author of the software 20% of the time (or whatever).

~~~
packetslave
"Mozilla’s consolidated reported revenue (Mozilla Foundation and all
subsidiaries) for 2010 was $123 million, up approximately 18 percent from
2009"

[http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/annualreport/2010/fa...](http://www.mozilla.org/en-
US/foundation/annualreport/2010/faq/)

------
Dramatize
We are told that if you don't pay for a product than you are the product.

So when we pay for a product and then get sold (Google wouldn't have bought
the team if they didn't have any customers), it does feel disappointing.

~~~
Dramatize
Ah there's a better post explaining what I mean:
<http://www.elezea.com/2012/07/sparrow-google-acquisition/>

~~~
invalidOrTaken
In this case, though, the customers were still not _full_ customers. The
Sparrow developers were being paid less than their real market value. How do I
know? Because the market just said they'll be more valuable at Google.

This ignores the linked post's author, who was willing to pay as much as they
charged, and probably more. Unfortunately, he was apparently in the minority.

------
technoslut
Matt Gemmell has always insulted people and this is no difference. It's okay
that Sparrow was acquired but his blog posts, along with Benjamin Brooks, is
why I never pay attention to it. It may be intelligent but it's riddled with
hate. Most times it is directed at the customer or theists.

He never places the blame on devs like Culture Code who promised Things sync
but were quicker to release an iPad app to make more money.

~~~
mnicole
I don't find Benjamin's posts as user-blaming, per se, but I definitely don't
feel he adds anything to the conversation besides "I got to try an app before
you and here's how it doesn't fit my iPad-only blogger lifestyle and therefore
won't fit into yours. Have I namedropped one of my friends yet?" That he feels
his blog is Daring Fireball subscription-worthy put me (and how he updated his
layout to look very similar to Gruber's), a previously everyday reader, off to
reading it even in its free form.

------
dvhh
I guess the whiners would have been happier if the company behind sparrow went
bankrupt. It would have given them more closure I guess.

------
dools
I can't believe everyone is so upset about this and it didn't even have push
notifications. Get an Android device already!

------
durga
Totally awesome. Love this piece!

------
huhtenberg
I still wonder how much they got :)

------
drwaffle
I could not possibly agree more. This bunch of butthurt is just the latest in
a long, LONG history of self-entitled Apple fanboys whining that someone found
their super secret clubhouse.

There is no grand conspiracy. They weren't hired because Google was "AFRAID"
that their software was "TOO GOOD" and was somehow a "THREAT" to their bottom
line. That argument reeks of that tired old "there's a technology that lets
cars run on water, but THE GOVERNMENT covered it up BECAUSE OF OIL!!!1"

Google makes popular mail service. People want a better UI. Third-party team
develops a client with a better UI. Everyone loves the new client. Google
hires the team that made the new client.

If your first reaction wasn't "Oh neat, now they're going to make the core
gmail webapp more like Sparrow!", and was instead more along the lines of "OH
NO, now EVERYONE will get to use what I've been enjoying!", then you are a
fanboy. There is literally no other meaning.

------
rogerchucker
Where the hell was the outrage when a neutered Siri came out with 4S showing
that the original Siri that was shelved used to be much more useful?

