[Applejinx]

Depends. I'm shepherding http://www.airwindows.com/ through a switch to Patreon, by expressing new DSP ideas in a context of very, very old audio plugin frameworks. The dev tools I'm using won't even work on current computers. I code on a time capsule laptop and depend on the very simplified plugin formats I've chosen (generic interface AU and VST) to remain functional. They'd have to break the most fundamental interfaces to kill my stuff (which doesn't make it impossible to do, just very user-hostile)

Don't confuse advances in technology with intentional churn generated by vendors and platforms. The latter is a plague, and it doesn't only cost people money, it costs them productivity. You may be getting confused and mistaking skillset for toolset. Large companies will always be able to replace your toolset and demand you learn a whole new one, because the more you do, the more you'll be locked in to their toolset. If you can abstract out the functions being implemented and express them in different ways, you can take your skillset different places.

Whether you do that, depends on how good you are at finding niche markets. As someone who's stayed in business for ten years selling GUI-less audio plugins with no advertising and no DRM of any sort, I can tell you (1) niche markets exist and they're loyal, and (2) they're small, which is what makes them niche. :)

[walterbell]

> Don't confuse advances in technology with intentional churn generated by vendors and platforms. The latter is a plague, and it doesn't only cost people money, it costs them productivity.

Do you think churn is intentional within a single vendor, e.g. to force upgrades? Could churn be a by-product of competition between vendors, e.g. AWS refactored most of enterprise computing into "low-end" services that steadily improved, but were proprietary and increased lock-in.

> The dev tools I'm using won't even work on current computers. I code on a time capsule laptop and depend on the very simplified plugin formats I've chosen (generic interface AU and VST) to remain functional.

Is the time capsule laptop for old operating systems or old hardware? COuld the old operating systems work in a virtual machine?

> They'd have to break the most fundamental interfaces to kill my stuff (which doesn't make it impossible to do, just very user-hostile)

Apple tried to get ride of files (!) entirely, but they are slowly making a comeback on iOS, e.g. now you can insert an attachment within an email, with the right application plugin. Social networks have done their best to replace RSS push notifications with proprietary pubsub. WebDAV, CalDAV, CardDAV are thankfully still supported by a few good apps.

> niche markets exist and they're loyal, and (2) they're small, which is what makes them niche.

How do you market your services/products within your niche?

[Applejinx]

Yes, I do. Forcing upgrades is just another way to force sales, and that's competition. Churn happens.

The old laptop is just the most convenient sort of virtual machine. At some point it'll be easier to run a virtual time capsule laptop… however, the physical time capsule laptop is from a time before intense spyware, so there are security issues as well.

As far as niches, Airwindows doesn't market at all. It's only word of mouth, for ten years, with few exceptions (notably, Console2 got reviewed in Tape Op, a trade magazine). This is personal: I loathe getting harassed by marketers so much that I won't even email, much less advertise. I collected a list of the 'Kagi generation' customers who specifically said they wanted to be on a mailing list and hear from me that way. And then I haven't emailed anything to them for months and months :) So, effectively, my business is 'for people who hate marketing so much that they want to do business with someone who will absolutely leave them alone and not bug them'.

By definition this is a niche to starve in, but it's sincere. I really do hate most everything about marketing, so I simply will not do it. Sometimes when I have a notable post or product I leave out the patreon link on purpose :)

[walterbell]

Haha, new marketing category: product only available for purchase in a 24-hour period that happens twice a year, or on a date decided by the roll of a dice in a youtube video, or by solving a puzzle, or .. :)

[Applejinx]

But you're still saying 'purchase', and my market sector is completely dominated by software piracy to the point where it's choking on sketchy and unreliable DRM.

More like, 'new' marketing category: Trust Building Exercise. Attempt to give everything possible away, and see if social pressure can cause a lot of people to go 'yay!' and throw money. Hence the Patreon with literally no tiers above 1$, with at least half the patrons from 2$ to 10$ on their own volition.

The trouble with that (speaking as someone who has some notion of marketing but chooses to undermine it) is, it's one of those power-law relationships where basically you have to be me to do it :) without ten years of sorta grassroots presence in the industry and a large number of successful products that perform well as software, you can't do it. You can't simply start up and have a Patreon work on those terms, even if your products are exactly as good, and this is a problem.

Solving that would be a very big deal but it's a bit beyond me for now…