Technology

59374 readers

7244 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

172

Why 'free' proprietary software will always end in tears (davelane.nz)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[+] [email protected] -44 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Couldn't be arsed to read this, fed the link into an LMM and asked to summarize. This is the result:

Dave Lane’s blog post, “Why ‘free’ proprietary software will always end in tears,” discusses the pitfalls of using proprietary software that is offered for free. He shares a personal story about a scouting group’s experience with a poorly implemented proprietary system and explains how such software often becomes a critical dependency for organizations. This dependency can lead to issues when the software’s limitations or costs become apparent. Lane argues that proprietary software, even when free, often leads to negative outcomes due to its restrictive nature and the control exerted by its developers

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 month ago (3 children)

This is bad. Lane's argument is that freemium software is tore up from the floor up. You'd get the impression reading this summery that he was just bitching about one program his Boy Scout troop used.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And now they truly don't need to read it because you corrected it, in the end they won!

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maybe not everyone sees the world as win/lose, black/white, 1/0... weird concept, i know...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Ok then, "in the end they didn't learn anything"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

summery

That's bright and sunny.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

LLM completely whiffed on this one:

It’s not a poorly implemented app. It’s a well-implemented app that in the early stages is not monetized
The issue is not that limitations and costs are becoming apparent. The issue is that after the honeymoon period ends, developers seeking return on investment start locking features critical for business behind a paywall, and charge a very high premium fee for services that used to be free.
It’s not the restrictive nature of freemium software that becomes the issue. It’s the increasing enshittification of platforms to squeeze business customers for as much as they can before the platform collapses, betting on the established dependency making it too costly to switch to another platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

IT’S A TRAP!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Here's a 1-word explanation: enshittification. AKA The "loss leader" approach.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The most important point of venture capital isn't even mentioned.