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0 pointsjollofricepeas3y ago0 comments

Yep.

Sublime Text.

I sat through scores of interviews and pairing sessions with developers back when Sublime was a thing and the vast majority (>90%) of devs would rather exit out of that pop-up asking for support then pay the measly $30 or whatever regardless of their massive incomes and increased productivity that Sublime brought them.

We developers are no more altruistic than anyone else regardless of the lies we fed ourselves in the early days of FOSS, internet, bitcoin, etc.

0 comments

xavdid3y ago

It's worth mentioning that a ST4 license is $99 USD (and ST3 used to be $80).

Still a relative drop in the bucket for how powerful ST is and how much value its users derive from it, but there _is_ a bit of sticker shock when comparing it to most other software.

I say this as someone who, as a broke college student, got very good at hitting esc every 10 times I saved (which is how often it asks). I eventually switched to VSCode, and the rest is history.

wingerlang3y ago

I've been using Sublime Text for as long as I can remember and being good at exiting the popup is pretty accurate, I feel as if I don't even recognize it being there anymore.

newaccount743y ago

> the vast majority (>90%) of devs would rather exit out of that pop-up

Converting just 5% of users to paying customers is considered pretty good for shareware/freemium, so just because you saw a lot of people using the trial does not mean it is unsustainable. I have no idea how much the developer of Sublime Text makes, but considering that they have been around since 2008 I would assume it's definitely sustainable.

oblio3y ago

Yeah, but it's generally the kind of money that only allows having a mom-and-pop store. 1-2-5 employees, that's it. If you have a bigger initiative, you can't do it.

Instead, Mega Corp just buys you out when you burn out after many years of development, we see this happening regularly.

newaccount743y ago

In general I think you are probably right. Many developer tools are small projects that can be developed by a single person, and it seems they often struggle to grow into to a bigger company. (I've experienced this struggle myself. For me, the problem was not lack of money)

On the other hand, I think Jetbrains shows that it is absolutely possible to build a huge company that sells nothing but developer tools.

There are also a bunch of mid-size companies that sell developer tools. I'm pretty sure there's more than 5 people at Navicat, Hex-Rays, or Panic, but I'm not sure how big these companies actually are.

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alibarber3y ago

Oh I've had colleagues look at me strange for actually having bought a licence. We are sometimes a parody of ourselves...

mmustapic3y ago

I'm a contractor so my case is a bit different, I can't expect a client to pay for every tool I want to use. But I gladly pay for Sublime Text and Sublime Merge because it makes my work more enjoyable and effective, and this is also good for whoever is paying me.

terminal_d3y ago

I remember when people used to visit wikileaks for a Sublime Text license key.

nebulous13y ago

I think ST was a huge financial success overall though.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

xavdid3y ago

It's worth mentioning that a ST4 license is $99 USD (and ST3 used to be $80).

Still a relative drop in the bucket for how powerful ST is and how much value its users derive from it, but there _is_ a bit of sticker shock when comparing it to most other software.

I say this as someone who, as a broke college student, got very good at hitting esc every 10 times I saved (which is how often it asks). I eventually switched to VSCode, and the rest is history.

wingerlang3y ago

I've been using Sublime Text for as long as I can remember and being good at exiting the popup is pretty accurate, I feel as if I don't even recognize it being there anymore.

newaccount743y ago

> the vast majority (>90%) of devs would rather exit out of that pop-up

oblio3y ago

Yeah, but it's generally the kind of money that only allows having a mom-and-pop store. 1-2-5 employees, that's it. If you have a bigger initiative, you can't do it.

Instead, Mega Corp just buys you out when you burn out after many years of development, we see this happening regularly.

newaccount743y ago

On the other hand, I think Jetbrains shows that it is absolutely possible to build a huge company that sells nothing but developer tools.

1 more reply

alibarber3y ago

Oh I've had colleagues look at me strange for actually having bought a licence. We are sometimes a parody of ourselves...

mmustapic3y ago

terminal_d3y ago

I remember when people used to visit wikileaks for a Sublime Text license key.

nebulous13y ago

I think ST was a huge financial success overall though.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse