[andruby]

The question isn't "what is the lowest cost that a CSS library could be maintained for"

The question is rather, how can the most popular UI system (especially for AI models) have a healthy business model?

Think of the immense value that Tailwind is bringing to all the companies and developers using it. Surely there should be a way for the creators to capture a small slice of that in our economic system.

[Maro]

> the most popular UI system (especially for AI models)

Like others earlier in the thread I'm symphatetic to this company/project, but your code/project being referenced often in AI output in itself doesn't imply that the thing needs to be a business.

bash, curl, awk, Python code with numpy imports, C++, all sorts of code is constantly being generated by AI, doesn't mean curl or numpy should be its own company, or that the AI Labs need to fund them.

As other fave written, making $1M+ already feels like a lot, maybe this shouldn't be a company, just 1-2 people who have a great time supporting this thing. I wonder if curl or awk have that kind of funding even..

[FelipeCortez]

> doesn't mean curl or numpy should be its own company, or that the AI Labs need to fund them.

you'd be surprised

https://numpy.org/about/#sponsors https://curl.se/sponsors.html

[Maro]

Great point, thanks for making it. Following onward, NumPy has a non-profit called Numfocus who is behind it:

https://numfocus.org/

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/454...

Apparently they have an annual budget of ~$10M. From the contributors, it's easy to recognize the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (so Meta), Google, MSFT. This is great.

Having said that, I'd still say that $1-2M for a CSS library seems more than enough. Not everything needs to be "scaled"..

[patates]

When very important tooling does not have very impressive funding, you get the xkcd 2347 situation very quickly.

[rurban]

Not very important. Just sugar for webdevs.

Change the pricing model and you'll better off

[no-name-here]

That’s the All Modern Digital Infrastructure relying on a dependency a Nebraskan has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003 one: https://xkcd.com/2347/

[apublicfrog]

> The question is rather, how can the most popular UI system (especially for AI models) have a healthy business model?

My question is why does it need one? Most web libraries I've used for the last few decades have not had any corporate structure and certainly haven't made a profit. They're done because someone wanted to showcase their skills and others got involved to help, or for fun or because a company who does something else built them internally and decided to open source.

We don't need to apply capitalism to everything. Not everything needs a profit and scale.

[rapatel0]

Profit is the life blood of a business. It’s what pays for, mistakes, new ideas, responding to changes in the market. It tells you your are doing good things and that you are doing them well

It’s the engineering tolerance that allows a company to operate and remain reliable.

It’s amazing to me that engineers don’t understand this concept.

(Clarification, not talking about excess profits)

[apublicfrog]

I think you've missed my point. Most of the libraries I'm talking about are not part of a business. And they didn't need anything to pay for mistakes, new ideas, etc.

I understand companies needing to profit, my question is why does an open source library need a company?

[tpmoney]

> I understand companies needing to profit, my question is why does an open source library need a company?

Because people like to eat and have homes and not everyone wants to work full time on someone else's code and then come home and work full time on their own. Because paying people for the work that they do is a good thing.

[apublicfrog]

I think this is a very capitalistic lens you're viewing through. Open source projects (and the web in general) are traditionally not paid work or often seen as "work" at all. The web was built by people who just wanted to do a cool thing, and motivation of profit was much less common.

I challenge the concept of "paying people for the work that they do is a good thing", at least in this context. I don't think everything needs to be profitable and paid, people can just make cool things for love and passion.

[AlecSchueler]

So the millions of dollars are going towards marketing and suchlike you mean?

[andruby]

I don't understand. Does Tailwind spend money on marketing? Afaik they mostly spend on salaries and probably a bit on hosting/infra.