This product names crucial issues with how software development is currently monetized, and then offers an alternative that... solves absolutely none of these problems.
Optional extras like 'downloads or other resources' are presumably digital and therefore do not solve the problem - folks can still pirate it. If that's not the point, then it is a donation, in the simplified parlance of the first paragraph of 1sub.dev.
And this all from a company/effort that has such lofty goals that the html title of the page is 'a world where people pay for software'.
This (how do you monetize software development / how do we e.g. let FOSS developers capture more than the current 0.0000000001% of the value they create) is an incredibly difficult problem and this effort sounds like some naive newbie took 5 seconds to think about it and thought: Yeah let's fix things!
At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old fart: Hoo boy if it was that simple, it'd have been solved already.
Alternative plans that work a lot better:
* The NPM ecosystem has a ton of software-as-a-service offerings, e.g. where you can use their site to serve as online tool to e.g. make documentation, to have their site host that documentation, etc. I hate this model (you get nickel-and-dimed and both companies and open source developers alike don't usually like having 50 downstream service providers who, if they go down or have issues, require you having to explain to _your_ customers what's going wrong), but it solves the problems this site names (you can't pirate this, and you get something of value for your money in return).
* Tidelift tries to provide security assurances and support: The payers don't just 'donate', they pay to just be done with the security issues with FOSS dependencies: Tidelift gives you software that scans all your dev work for all your deps and which versions you are on, and tidelift ensures not just that there are no major security holes in those deps, but also that the authors of those deps have made some basic promises about maintaining it in trade for real consideration (namely: money). Github sponsors and the like are more or less barking up the same tree. These setups also solve an unstated problem 1sub.dev tries to solve, which is: You tend to use _a lot_ of software; if you have, say, 600 dependencies (not crazy in this modern age of software dev), and you want to individually set up a 'deal' with all of em, one person has a full time job as they will have to renew over 2 contracts __every working day__ assuming all your subscriptions are yearly.
* Microsoft and co do it as a package deal: You pay one fee for everything they offer and aggressively legally chase down anybody that pirates.
* patreon and co grease the wheels of the donation flow by making it simpler and allowing developers to give something that's hard to pirate: T-shirts and stickers, mentions in the 'about...' page and so on.
* Some developers of FOSS, as well as _many_ commercial outfits, will accept money in trade for priority support.
All of these models have issues. But at least they actually aim to solve the problems. This attempt doesn't even begin to tackle the actual issues, unless I'm missing something.
As a 1million+ user FOSS developer who maintains the library primarily based on privilege (I have enough income to work for the roughly minimum wage I currently get for it, though I could have earned vastly more if I worked for a commercial entity for those hours) - I'm aware that this is not a good situation, that you need to sort out your finances separately just to be a good FOSS author. But, I don't see how 1sub.dev is going to add much compared to what's already there (patreon, github sponsors, FOSS aggregators like apache and eclipse foundation, tidelift, etc).
> offers an alternative that... solves absolutely none of these problems.
Here is how 1sub solves or remedies the problems with the mentioned methods:
- Pay to download or for other services: With 1sub it will be more worth it because you don't just get access to that software or that service, you get access to the software and services of all developers who participate in this system.
- Accepting donations: While 1sub keeps some of the voluntary aspect of donations, you also get something for your money.
> folks can still pirate it
Yes, the point of this is not to make it impossible to do anything without a subscription. It just makes the difference in convenience between subscribing and not subscribing bigger since there are more things that you get or don't get depending on whether you subscribe.
> this effort sounds like some naive newbie took 5 seconds to think about
Interestingly I have thought about this for many years and no idea I have had before or any solution I have seen has felt as good as this one because they always fail in that the user doesn't have enough reason to pay. The main objective of this solution is to give the user more reason to pay.
Optional extras like 'downloads or other resources' are presumably digital and therefore do not solve the problem - folks can still pirate it. If that's not the point, then it is a donation, in the simplified parlance of the first paragraph of 1sub.dev.
And this all from a company/effort that has such lofty goals that the html title of the page is 'a world where people pay for software'.
This (how do you monetize software development / how do we e.g. let FOSS developers capture more than the current 0.0000000001% of the value they create) is an incredibly difficult problem and this effort sounds like some naive newbie took 5 seconds to think about it and thought: Yeah let's fix things!
At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old fart: Hoo boy if it was that simple, it'd have been solved already.
Alternative plans that work a lot better:
* The NPM ecosystem has a ton of software-as-a-service offerings, e.g. where you can use their site to serve as online tool to e.g. make documentation, to have their site host that documentation, etc. I hate this model (you get nickel-and-dimed and both companies and open source developers alike don't usually like having 50 downstream service providers who, if they go down or have issues, require you having to explain to _your_ customers what's going wrong), but it solves the problems this site names (you can't pirate this, and you get something of value for your money in return).
* Tidelift tries to provide security assurances and support: The payers don't just 'donate', they pay to just be done with the security issues with FOSS dependencies: Tidelift gives you software that scans all your dev work for all your deps and which versions you are on, and tidelift ensures not just that there are no major security holes in those deps, but also that the authors of those deps have made some basic promises about maintaining it in trade for real consideration (namely: money). Github sponsors and the like are more or less barking up the same tree. These setups also solve an unstated problem 1sub.dev tries to solve, which is: You tend to use _a lot_ of software; if you have, say, 600 dependencies (not crazy in this modern age of software dev), and you want to individually set up a 'deal' with all of em, one person has a full time job as they will have to renew over 2 contracts __every working day__ assuming all your subscriptions are yearly.
* Microsoft and co do it as a package deal: You pay one fee for everything they offer and aggressively legally chase down anybody that pirates.
* patreon and co grease the wheels of the donation flow by making it simpler and allowing developers to give something that's hard to pirate: T-shirts and stickers, mentions in the 'about...' page and so on.
* Some developers of FOSS, as well as _many_ commercial outfits, will accept money in trade for priority support.
All of these models have issues. But at least they actually aim to solve the problems. This attempt doesn't even begin to tackle the actual issues, unless I'm missing something.
As a 1million+ user FOSS developer who maintains the library primarily based on privilege (I have enough income to work for the roughly minimum wage I currently get for it, though I could have earned vastly more if I worked for a commercial entity for those hours) - I'm aware that this is not a good situation, that you need to sort out your finances separately just to be a good FOSS author. But, I don't see how 1sub.dev is going to add much compared to what's already there (patreon, github sponsors, FOSS aggregators like apache and eclipse foundation, tidelift, etc).