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Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

> His experience is totally unique. Please don't let this make you think you can quit your job and earn the same you did at your high paying FANG job. He's an outlier in the industry.

…and yet…

I run a self-funded SaaS business. I regularly pay (sponsor) developers of libraries that my software depends on. These are not large amounts, but they slowly grow over time. Additionally, there are some libraries (Semantic-UI for example) that are critical for me, but have been unmaintained for a while, and I'd gladly pay significantly more, on a regular basis, to have them maintained.

I am pretty sure I am not the only one. The money is there. The problem is in gathering critical mass: both for any single developer, to make a living, and for the entire movement, so that we shift from a culture of "FREE FREE EVERYTHING IS FREE" to a more responsible and sustainable "it's free, but if you depend on it, you better contribute money every month".

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Quite frankly you're extremely unusual. As much as I sound cynical here, the only reason we use open source stuff in our production SaaS is because we don't have to raise a purchase order to get it or go through the whole onboarding process which is a pain in the ass. The money isn't even the issue; it's there and available but it's a bureaucratic shit show trying to give it to people. And the same is true everywhere I've worked for the last 20 years. Yes I know this is wrong.

Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who would handle all this sitting somewhere we could create a supply agreement with and funnel the cash through to the right people we could probably deal with it. We currently do this via AWS marketplace regularly so we don't have to deal with the paperwork.

> Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who...

Isn't that what tidelift [1] is doing?

[1] https://tidelift.com

I feel like there is a business waiting to bloom here. Imagine a stripe like company that says “we are the unified B2B transaction company” who takes both sellers of software and buying enterprises as customers and create a easy to use purchase system where a software dev in the US could sell to a company in New Zealand without worrying about 1. Currency conversion 2. Local tax collection 3. Invoicing 4. Any other local formalities

That is totally worth day 10% of the value of the product!

>That is totally worth day 10% of the value of the product!

It won't work: this company will eventually crank up their fees to 30+% of the value.

Sounds like Open Collective.

These companies exist, at least domestically in varying regions of the world.

A lot of software/B2B sales are procured through a channel whose primary purpose is an existing business relationship with the company you're trying to sell to.

They take a % as a transaction fee. Anywhere from 10-30%, depending.

Ah, procurement.

They exist. They suck, they all suck... and I say this as a vendor "procured" by these companies.

It's a necessary evil, one that's ripe for disruption.

I think it's a logical next step for companies like Crossbeam[1]. You have a network of partners, some of which are fulfillment partners. They can be the middlemen to expand your network and take a piece.

1: https://crossbeam.com

I get your point. I'm not too keen on administrative overhead, either.

> Business idea: If there was a single corporate intermediatory who would handle all this sitting somewhere we could create a supply agreement with and funnel the cash through to the right people we could probably deal with it.

Isn't that exactly what Github does through its Sponsors program? I think I only handle two endpoints these days: Github Sponsors and Clojurists Together. Github works very well, and they will even fold/consolidate new sponsorships into your existing invoices as you add them over time.

I don't think "overhead" is a valid excuse anymore.

> the only reason we use open source stuff in our production SaaS is because we don't have to raise a purchase order to get it

I'm sure it's not the only reason to choose open-source tech.

At least with open-source projects you can read, patch, clone or fork the source

I don't think current platforms make it easy for developers to make money from their software. Especially libraries. There's a total unwillingness to pay for support because it's easier to just open a GitHub issue and complain. I think you're a rare case and that really means developers can't make a living off stuff like this. The few exceptions are something like sqlite maybe. Other stuff ends up needing to be heavily VC funded or backed by corporate sponsorships.

If GitHub actually helped developers make money this would be a different story. Sponsorships are a tipjar, it's not a sustainable path, it's not a form of employment. Grants, same thing, waste of time. We need the ability for developers to put a Pay but on their repositories. This is not about optional sponsorship. This is about paying to download the code, paying for use after a certain point. This is about putting a real number on the value of software. It only works when you define the economic model. If each Dev has yo setup their own website, integrate payments, do sales, etc its a struggle. GitHub is a big enough distribution channel where they could actually streamline this, App Store style. I know they have a marketplace but realistically who's using it?

> If GitHub actually helped developers make money this would be a different story. Sponsorships are a tipjar, it's not a sustainable path, it's not a form of employment.

I really don't understand. GitHub does help developers make money. Sponsorships are subscriptions, not one-time tips. If you can get 20 companies to pitch in with, say, $250/month, you begin to look at a sustainable living. From a company point of view, paying, say, $1000/month for four most-used pieces of software that the company depends on, is still many times less expensive than hiring even a single full-time developer.

I feel like rather than trying to change the mindset ("everything must be FREE FREE FREE"), we are trying very hard to find reasons not to use a perfectly good existing solution.

It's the issue with the concept of sponsorship. It's still associated with optional donation rather than payment for a service or tool you need. That mindset shift is huge. Until someone does it we'll continue in the way we're going.

With GitHub, sponsorships are either one-off payments or regular subscriptions. FWIW I've only ever been paid once through GitHub sponsors and that was a one-off payment. This payment ($500) was actually from GitHub itself because they use the software I work on.

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