[cmer]

The problem I see with their business model is that the technology has long been commoditized, and alternatives are often better. It's a pretty tough spot to be in.

Anecdotally, I use Colima on my Mac, and it is better than Docker Desktop in pretty much every way I can think of. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Generally, a company like Docker would sell support agreements (ie: how Red Hat does it), but selling support to developers rather than to support core infrastructure/production deployments probably wouldn't work. I hope they can figure it out and succeed.

[toomuchtodo]

This issue was brought up in the initial hacker news thread, when Docker was moving towards this pricing model. Here we are, $120M ARR later.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28369570

[candiddevmike]

Competitive Docker Desktop replacements (podman) are just starting to see adoption IMO. Let's see the number next year. Lots of companies had no other choice but to pay.

[cabraca]

Maybe i'm just in a bubble but none of those Docker Desktop replacements work well on a locked down corporate laptop. Sure you can get it to work somehow, manually configuring proxies, dns and stuff. Docker Desktop somehow just works. Thats why we pay for it.

[speedgoose]

Life is too short to spend a third of your active life left on a locked down corporate laptop. You should be admin.

[ilyt]

I mean, the corporate is paying you for that time either way so that's their loss really

[radiator]

Yes, they pay you for that time, so what? Are you also not losing if you are not satisfied with your working environment?

[hhh]

Rancher Desktop works on my Macbook w/ Crowdstrike, Zscaler, Globalprotect, and I'm sure a few other things. Multipass doesn't.

[smoldesu]

Really? I can run containers without root on Podman, which I could never do with Docker.

[twblalock]

That is changing fast and in a year or two Podman and Rancher (and a few others) will be just as good. A number of large companies are also building their own in-house replacements.

I was personally looking for an alternative even before the license change, because the performance of Docker Desktop on my Macbook Pro is terrible in a number of different ways.

[wstuartcl]

I think it will be interesting to see the next few years. There were quite a few orgs that jumped as the pricing was introduced, detachment from k8s etc that was a side effect, a bunch of new options in (free) market. Just from my perspective out of the orgs I know of that bought into the pricing, every one of them has active projects to get off in the next year.

[hnarn]

> Here we are, $120M ARR later.

Juicing ARR in a dying company is not rocket science, keep an eye on that number and compare it in 2025 or so to Apple or Microsoft.

[toomuchtodo]

Such a strange way to say, “Charging enterprises for value provided.” They’re clearly providing value if customers are paying for it. If you would prefer to spend engineering time rolling your own, that is an option. Paying someone else to make that pain point go away is, clearly, also an option. Tangentially, sell to businesses, not individual devs.

Isn’t this forum supported financially by startups generating value from solving someone else’s problem…for money?

[alooPotato]

The success bar you're defining is that Docker has to be as successful as two generational companies?!?!?!

Also, please explain how one would "juice" ARR to $120M.

[hnarn]

Assuming I meant absolute dollars is absurd, I was talking about sustaining or increasing revenue. That should, if anything, be easier for a small company.

In theory it’s simple and it’s happened many times: If you have a company with a lot of users but no income stream, you can hold those users hostage without adding much value, just find something that causes immense discomfort if it disappears and charge for it. Profit skyrockets, customers leave over time, the company dies.

[alooPotato]

I've never seen that get you to $120M ARR. Have any examples?

[hnarn]

What a strange argument. So if it hasn’t happened before it’s impossible?

[cmer]

They have LONG way to go before they can prove sustainable in the long run and justify their valuation.

[tootie]

It makes me wonder if Oracle is making any money off of Java at this point. Aside from losing court cases over IP, they have seriously soured the brand.