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by bdon 977 days ago
Mapbox is still the best choice where a polished suite of mapping APIs is a better fit for a project.

Mapbox is a venture-backed company with a SaaS business model, and has never been open source in total - it used to be open core with a FOSS frontend and proprietary backend. This SaaS model is absolutely the best way to fund huge companies and give investors a return. Mapbox has also done the bulk of innovation in open source web mapping over the past 10 years - the Protomaps project uses MapLibre (fork of Mapbox GL 1.0) and the MVT tile format. Both required teams of full-time developers - easily tens of millions in salaries and stock - and they have given away version 1.0 for free as a gift, even though 2.0 is not open source.

The ideal software economy is one in which innovators capture a good portion of the wealth they create. This is why it's important for Protomaps to focus on use cases underserved by SaaS, instead of just being a cheaper map API. The sibling comment on wildfire mapping https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37989059 is a good example of the applications I want the project to support.
2 comments
pdntspa 977 days ago
> The ideal software economy is one in which innovators capture a good portion of the wealth they create.

Beg to differ, the ideal software economies maximally empowers end-users at the absolute minimal cost. Innovators can and should leave substantial cash on the table. They should see themselves as stewards of a public good.

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Aeolun 977 days ago
> They should see themselves as stewards of a public good.

I think that goes a bit far. They don’t absolutely _have_ to. It’s just nice if they do.

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HuwFulcher 976 days ago
I agree in principle but being a steward doesn't put food on the table
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jampekka 977 days ago
Ideal software economy would be all free (as in freedom) software. The current economy is hugely wasteful with lots of redundant work and generally bad outcomes.

Private ownership economy doesn't work for zero marginal cost products even in theory. It's a huge waste of our resources and a big hinderance to progress.

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