[arciini]

This seems like a perfectly reasonable way to end a service. The server died, and the effort to bring it back up seems high.

This is a reminder to pay for services you depend on. Per the Pinboard founder's post:

> I love free software and could not have built my site without it. But free web services are not like free software. If your free software project suddenly gets popular, you gain resources: testers, developers and people willing to pitch in. If your free website takes off, you lose resources. Your time is spent firefighting and your money all goes to the nice people at Linode.

> Like a service? Make them charge you or show you ads. If they won't do it, clone them and do it yourself. Soon you'll be the only game in town!

https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/

[hobofan]

> If your free software project suddenly gets popular, you gain resources: testers, developers and people willing to pitch in.

I wouldn't even say that this is true. If your free software project get's popular you get: Users that want their feautures built and don't want to build it themselves; PRs that need to be reviewed; Co-maintainers that need to be communicated with; etc.

Yes, it also can have upsides, but depending on the project and it's surrounding ecosystem (and culture), it can easily be more demanding that rewarding.

[silvestrov]

You also get users which don't understand a thing and who send you tons of emails and want A++ personal support.

Sell the same service for $$$ money and suddenly the users (as a group) are a much nicer bunch.

Offering "Free Software" is sometimes like working in retail.

[svachalek]

I've seen this exact effect multiple times. It's really rather amazing, that no one expects as much as someone who's paid absolutely nothing for it. Kind of a divide by zero = infinity in the human firmware or something.

[jdrc]

Let's agree that it's a global tendency of humans to take advantage of other humans who have shown that they are willing to accept it.

[BlueTemplar]

Free software never meant free support, not even for the financial burden of providing source code. (Also why "libre software" is a better term.)

[aseipp]

Go tell that to the people who shit all over the emails and bug trackers of free software developers. The rest of us are well aware.

[BlueTemplar]

I mean the solution to that predates personal computers...

https://kk.org/ct2/heinleins-fan-mail-solution/

[aseipp]

The original complaint was "demanding and petty users flood you and take up your time, through the same channels your good users do", and your solution seems to be "just go ahead and let them take up your time"? What, is Heinlein's Ghost going to pat me on the back if I do? The reality is there is no real "solution" to this problem; there is no solution to "people are annoying." The very premise is completely ill-formed and only possible in a framework that views all human interaction and behavior as completely mechanical.

It's not all bad, though, working on free/libre software, and I'd be remiss to not mention that. Maybe I'm letting it hit too close to home and you're just saying it in jest. But anyone here pretending that you can "solve" these kinds of issues so easily are deluding themselves and telling on themselves at the same time, in my opinion.

[aetherson]

You get both the demanding users and the giving users, but the point is, the demanding users don't actually cost your open source repo anything. When it's a website, every user is money out of your pocket.

[jandrewrogers]

Demanding users absolutely do cost something -- time and attention at a minimum. Some users will go to great lengths to try to force you to engage with them. An open source repo does not prevent this either in theory or practice.

[aetherson]

They actually don't. You can just ignore them. I get that people find them unpleasant. But "finding somebody unpleasant" is different from "someone costs you money."

[aseipp]

No you can't, because they report bugs in the same place that all the other people do, they create spam accounts, they concern troll, they divert conversations onto their pet issues, they do everything people have done to irritate other people on the internet for ages. It's very well understood behavior to anyone who has used an internet forum in the past 20 years and also obvious there is no magical way to filter this all out. You're running the project or part of the maintainer team, YOU have to separate the wheat from the chaff, no magical algorithm or "trick" is going to do it for you.

This is before the fun part where, depending on the level of "personality" you're dealing with, you might end up getting a fun weirdo who becomes obsessed with you for a little while and makes life miserable for everyone involved. I know one person who was stalked on GitHub (before they let you ban people from interacting with you, a fairly recent feature) and this person would comment on literally EVERYTHING they did, but only in a "nice" and "helpful" tone. You can't tune that shit out so easily, I'm afraid.

To be fair you also get some lesser psychopaths'; the angry guy who reported his bugs, replied and demanded to be replied to via Lisp programs in quoted code blocks was a more memorable one.

[pdonis]

> because they report bugs in the same place that all the other people do, they create spam accounts, they concern troll, they divert conversations onto their pet issues, they do everything people have done to irritate other people on the internet for ages.

What this is saying that if your "free software project" includes anything more than providing the source code for free online--in other words, if it includes things like a bug tracker, a discussion forum, etc., that you are actually paying attention to--then it's not just a "free software project" any more, it's more like a "free website", and has many of the same issues people are discussing here relative to the latter. And the solution would be much the same: your time and effort isn't free, so if you're giving it to the project, the project shouldn't be free; you should charge for it.

[compiler-guy]

Love to see your email filter that separates messages from helpful users from demanding users.

If you can't automate this step, you have to read the insults, and pleading, and jerk-faced comments from the demanding users. Which takes time and energy.

[aetherson]

My filter is my brain. I just... don't interact with people who don't seem worth interacting with.

And, look, that's not perfect and I'm not saying that it's not unpleasant. I'm saying that it's materially different from every person who uses your service costing you actual dollars. And if you can't see that, I honestly don't know what to tell you.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

> Love to see your email filter that separates messages from helpful users from demanding users.

Go one step further and make it a product. OP'll be a millionaire in no time.

[notyourday]

It is called "Pay me" button.

[xeromal]

How do you filter/ignore them without ignoring important stuff?

[rapind]

Demanding users of OSS at a minimum will cost you time. At worst they can also cost you reputation. At best they can help you improve your project.

I think in most cases the entitlement many (most?) users have makes it a net negative these days. At least for popular projects.

I think the easiest solution is to charge for support. No issue reports or PRs unless you’re also a paying user.

[MaxBarraclough]

> No issue reports or PRs unless you’re also a paying user.

You'd turn down quality bug-reports and code-contributions in the name of blocking spam?

I doubt I'm the only one who would take strong objection to the idea of pay me so that you can work on my project.

Open Source software development can be made to scale to the level of the Linux kernel. I don't buy the idea that its principles need to be thrown out in the name of anti-spam practicalities.

[rapind]

> You'd turn down quality bug-reports and code-contributions in the name of blocking spam?

Absolutely I’d “risk” it. Even a negligible amount like $10, would reduce the noise significantly. I’d also pay that in a heartbeat as a user.

> I don't buy the idea that its principles need to be thrown out in the name of anti-spam practicalities.

What “principles” are you referring to?

[MaxBarraclough]

> What “principles” are you referring to?

Those of Open Source software development:

> The users are treated like co-developers and so they should have access to the source code of the software. Furthermore, users are encouraged to submit additions to the software, code fixes for the software, bug reports, documentation, etc. [0]

Introducing a paywall to keep out those who wish to submit improvements to a project, is the antithesis of encouragement.

> I’d also pay that in a heartbeat as a user.

Not every Open Source contributor has money to give.

A better alternative might be for a forge website (GitHub or whomever) to implement a user-scoring system. Wikipedia uses this approach quite successfully, where only users with a certain level of 'credibility' are permitted to make changes to semi-protected articles. StackExchange/StackOverflow does something similar to avoid spam on 'highly active questions'. Even HackerNews does something like this, showing usernames in green for new accounts.

What the forge would actually do with the user-score, I'm not certain. It would be difficult to do anything without making the forge less welcoming to newcomers.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software#Developme...

[pdonis]

> I think the easiest solution is to charge for support. No issue reports or PRs unless you’re also a paying user.

Agree 100%. Your time and effort isn't free. Users who want some of it should have to provide value in exchange.

[chefandy]

I don’t think anyone implied FOSS projects lack obligation— just that it’s more manageable.

Uptime (and the related system management,) large monthly withdrawals from your personal checking account, and soliciting donations to recoup some are are constant, recurring obligations more urgent than anything I’ve experienced maintaining repos. Most people shrug and move on if their issues and feature requests get ignored. Even an ignored CVE isn’t going to stop you from paying your rent. Doing your best to get the word out to users (even breaking your code to do so if you’ve got an oft-included but rarely considered library or something), as far as I’m concerned, satisfies your ethical obligations.

[weddpros]

Hi I'm the creator of sslping.

I'm just discovering that sslping is on the first page of HN. It hurts to have to kill your project, but it hurts even more to become famous after your death!

I've received 30+ super kind emails from users, and even a donation... I didn't even know I had such a fan base

[jeffrallen]

You did good, and you're doing good by killing this the way you need to for your own reasons. You don't owe anyone anything.

Hang in there.

[necovek]

This seems to imply paying for a service guarantees it will stay up.

We've got tons of evidence to show that's not the case. It might increase the likelihood of it staying up due to paying customers, but it might also not. I don't think we have data to conclude either way (more paid/ad-supported services spring up than completely free "services" — to loosely contrast that with just regular "web sites" — but more die an unglorious death too).

If you want assurance you'd be able to access your data or desired functionality, the only approach is to use a free-software based service that allows you to export your data (and import it into another instance). Depending on your desires, you could either pay someone to host it for you and be ready to host it yourself when they decide to kill it, or host it yourself from the get go.

People make this risk assesment subconsciously all the time. Eg. whether to use gmail.com for their email account or any small random provider ("hey, gmail is more likely to stick around")? Whether to host on YouTube or... You get the point.

[tlavoie]

All good points of course, and the more honest service providers will tell you the same. In Pinboard's case, the author has regularly joked about being hit by a bus, and how people need to back up their links. He's also got an API in place to enable exactly that.

You could use the same API as a model to reinvent your own personal service, if you so choose. I use it (for now) to just back up everything important, and I'll figure out what to do with the data later if I ever need to.

[everybodyknows]

> This seems to imply paying for a service guarantees it will stay up.

Apposite point seeing that the Pinboard Blog referenced above was last posted to in 2017! Moreover, the home page appears as an unreadable jumble on Firefox mobile.

[rozenmd]

100% - I'm less and less inclined to build free tiers into my products these days, it's just not sustainable.

[indigochill]

Free tiers are/should be a marketing tactic that gets people comfortable enough with your product that when it comes time to put money down, they put it on your thing rather than the competitor. It's when free tiers don't have a sufficient draw into a paid tier that you run into problems.

Microsoft figured this out relatively early on during their monopoly lawsuit which they cleverly settled by donating a bunch of Microsoft products to schools so that the next generation of the workforce would grow up on Microsoft products and become commercial Microsoft users in the workforce (and I've seen Apple use this same approach since then). What was ostensibly seen as a punishment by the legal system simply entrenched their position further.

And in gaming, there's an entire industry around "free to play" games that make billions of dollars, although I sincerely hope B2B tech doesn't take marketing inspiration from them.

[lwkl]

Microsoft offers their products to educational institutions for a fraction of the price. You just have to license your staff and get the licenses for your students for "free". And the staff licenses for education cost yearly what businesses pay monthly (MS365 E5 for about $90/year).

In return schools teach their students Microsoft products in school and you can't really beat the pricing. Because running your own infrastructure will be more expensive especially if your school isn't big enough to have it's own IT department. Prices are rising though because you can't license box versions anymore.

So you now have the choice of paying for Teams, SharePoint online and not using them and licensing and running your local file servers, AD etc. or switching more of your infrastructure to the cloud and increasing the lock-in.

This is really worrying to me, but from a cost perspective you can't really justify continue running a lot of infrastructure, especially if your local government doesn't have a lot of funds in the first place. I'd rather spend that money on hardware that the students and teachers can use than pay for servers and licenses.

[Godel_unicode]

> ...you can't license box versions anymore.

Of course you can:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-profe...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-...

[lwkl]

Yes I‘m aware boxed versions are still available. But they aren‘t available under the contract the state negotiated with Microsoft. And that’s the terms the schools use to buy licenses if they don’t want to pay a premium.

To change this there would have to be political will to reduce the lock-in and maybe offer a state run cloud service.

[Godel_unicode]

There is absolutely educational pricing for boxed Office. It sounds like you might be upset about the choices your State made, and are conflating that with what is possible.

[infinityio]

> and I've seen Apple use this same approach since the

Google as well recently - unlimited free G Suite (now Workspace) for schools was a massive draw a few years ago, although they are starting to turn around and monetise now they have a captive audience

[capableweb]

Same with gmail. Initially launched with the idea of "Don't throw anything away - you'll never need to delete another message" but now the landing page of gmail talks more about security, productivity and other things since eventually you're gonna have to pay for more storage.

[jake_morrison]

The best use of free tier is to allow engineers at big companies to try things without having to get permission from someone.

There can be a lot of abuse, though.

[core-utility]

Precisely. All of /r/homelab on Reddit pretty much centers around enterprise features for free/cheap so they can learn off the job. It's a win for the employer, win for the software manufacturer, and a win for the engineer who is hopefully doing it out of enjoyment rather than pressure.

[zeepzeep]

Pay-to-win web services, right...

[rozenmd]

I mean, that's basically what freemium is for b2b - want to unlock features that get your job done faster? pay up.

[Jenk]

What do you think adwords is?

[berkes]

This is a race-to-the-bottom though. Or a marathon-of-deepest-pockets, whatever you call it.

If you decide to make people pay up, a competitor will step up and offer a free version, subsidised from VC or lucrative other businesses. And if the competitor isn't free, at least its cheaper: triggering a race-to-the-bottom, ending in "free".

In any market, for any service with potential, there will be a free, or at least cheaper option. Untill mono-/oligo-polies are established and prices go up, at which point the customers are "extorted" or close to it: all the losses up to now, must be paid from revenues now.

This is seen everywhere (from food delivery, via webhosting, to PAAS to SAAS) and a clear and present proof of why "free markets" aren't automatically efficient and need authorities poking around in them - or else they hardly work at all, let alone efficient.

[throwaway412114]

This is only true under the premise of profit motivation or some other kind of competition, which is not inherent to the FOSS ecosystem.

>In any market, for any service with potential, there will be a free, or at least cheaper option.

Which is not bad at all. IMHO the only problem here are business decisions, slowly locking you into something. FOSS nerds prefer protocols over platforms, which is why Posix and Linux living up to it are so incredibly important. You are right about the markets being misaligned, which is why we have to be very sceptical about big corps buying into various FOSS-foundations.

[berkes]

I presumed we were talking about the service part and not the software part. My comment was about running a service and not about offering FLOSS (or no floss) software.

Though I expect the same applies there too, only that "race to the bottom" is less of a negative thing. And could probably be "race to open-source". Where slowly all paid-for software gets FLOSS alternatives that -at some point- offer competing support/features/experience and therefore make the paid/proprietary alternatives more or less obsolete. E.g. while Oracle is still running and offering their database, on the whole, the world runs free databases. While Microsoft still sells billions of OSes, on the whole -including Android- the world runs Linux mostly. And except for OSX, hardly any other paid-for unixes survived. And so forth.

[dgb23]

That’s assuming quality is a constant and is purely objective.

Is there an opportunity cost in providing a gratis/marketing tier versus focusing more on paying customers?

[Jenk]

aka free market capitalism..

[intrasight]

I have a side gig B2B SaaS. My business users don't care if it's $1/year or $1000/year or $10,000/year. It's the same HUGE amount of paperwork for them either way, so the right answer is $10,000/year. I do allow very long trials.

I do still consider offering a "free" tier, but with the limitation that there is no free support, and each support incident will cost them $200. But then I remember what I said above.

[tedmiston]

How did you figure this out pricing-wise? And can you link to the service?

[throwawayboise]

You need to have an idea of the annual revenue of your prospects and price accordingly.

A $10,000 purchase for a small company with $100K revenue is going to be a huge expense. For a company with $100MM annual revenue it's a rounding error.

[gregoriol]

The guy is not talking about free tiers but about free services though.

Free tiers are good if correctly sized compared to paid tiers: they help users get to try/know your service, they allow students and kids aroung the world to play with things, they help small companies grow; if your free/paid tiers are well done, those users who start with the free tier will grow to the paid tiers. If not, it's should be ok too, not everyone is going to need all your features.

[weddpros]

I can't agree more... I'm the creator of SSLPing, and I can say it sucks BIG TIME to discover people loved your product and your product is on the first page of HN just after you had to kill it !

[boyband6666]

Free tiers are an essential; when settling on a service I will try many, in parallel with our current system. If I'm happy it is better I will switch,. when either immediately, or after a short period results in us being paid at a mid tier. If I have to pay to try, and find out if it is any good and works for our specific cases, I'll try it after competitors - so probably won't get round to it - as something else probably meets our needs first.

[madaxe_again]

Free trials are an essential for the reasons you describe - but it doesn’t mean it has to be free forever - just for long enough to make an honest evaluation. 30 days is the norm, and that seems fair to me.

[Jenk]

AWS (and generally all *aaS providers) free tier(s) are enough to experiment with, and get a feel for, but are limited enough that using them in any meaningful way is very difficult without incurring cost.

Surely you can appreciate that "time" is not the only commodity that can be meaningfully (and reasonably) limited?

[tedmiston]

That said, much (but not all) of the AWS "Free Tier" is really just a 12-month free trial. Only a small percentage of the offerings are truly longterm freemium.

https://aws.amazon.com/free/

[ptman]

https://paul.totterman.name/posts/free-clouds/ - you can do quite a bit with some free tiers, and some don't have a time limit

[thfuran]

Are you under the impression that their contention is that avoiding free tiers is essential?

[collaborative]

I enjoy seeing less affluent audiences use my product for free. It's hard to know who can who can't pay so you have to make an arbitrary call. In my case, I assume Android users can't pay and iOS users can. I have run some experiments and I have seen that this is mostly true

Some people will think that this is unfair, but I think it's great

[ghoomketu]

To be fair Pinboard.in was down quite a lot recently and its DNS has expired(1).

There was a big discussion here (2) and on Twitter IIRC that the author had lost his interest in product and no updates were being made. So there are no guarantees even when it's paid.

(1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29873306

(2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30628375

[tptacek]

Been pretty rock solid for me for years. Nobody said paying someone the price of a cup of coffee would get you a service with zero hiccups (again: none of which I've experienced, but I believe you). Maybe you should start shaking Maciej and demanding he accept more of your money, or run ads. :)

[capableweb]

I agree that it's a perfectly fine way of ending a free service. No guarantees = can end whenever, author is free to do whatever they feel.

However, I'm not sure the conclusion of "make the platform charge you" is the right conclusion if the goal is to have a service that A) doesn't disappear and B) won't make you have to do more work after setting it up (eg: doesn't change).

[bryanrasmussen]

well if you want it to never change in any way you don't want it to change then obviously the correct solution is build it yourself.

[necovek]

You don't have to build it yourself as long as you can host it yourself from software someone else has built. ;-)

[melony]

> Like a service? Make them charge you or show you ads. If they won't do it, clone them and do it yourself. Soon you'll be the only game in town!

Once you get enough users, talk to a few VCs and raise a round or two. Grow the user numbers by a few more magnitudes. Then aim to get acquired or IPO. As long as user and revenue growth are positive, not having profitability from day one isn't that big of a problem.