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Elastic was in the same bind as every company which writes opensource. There's no way to monetize it when a hyperscaler can sell it at much thinner margins.

Either the product is donated to a foundation, or the parent company dies.

While amazon technically wasn't doing anything "wrong", they're effectively squeezing the oxygen out of the ecosystem.

The parameters of the problem are relatively new. SAAS - which is now the norm for how software should be delivered, and opensource - which is old - just don't mix, the incentive structure is completely misaligned. Companies are prodding to see how to get out of this conundrum. Mongodb set the tone with the SSPL, and other midcap just kind of followed suit, what else was there to do, what other approaches could have been taken? Now, as the fallout starts to become clear, there's just a lot more information now on what works and doesn't, and companies are pivoting.

There's no vibes about it, it's brutal reality out there, big tech is strangling the market, and the small guys are figuring a way out, first trying one way, now another.



> Elastic was in the same bind as every company which writes opensource. There's no way to monetize it

It is hard to get customers, especially businesses, to pay for something which is being given away for free.




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