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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

HN is wrong about why Tarsnap is the best backup software, and that's partly because Colin is falsely modest about what Tarsnap is. Tarsnap is the best backup software because it is the most technically credible secure backup service on the Internet.

One way you can gauge just how wrong HN is about this point is to compare Tarsnap's business to that of any well-known backup provider, virtually all of which could (presuming, perhaps unfairly, that Colin is rational) buy Tarsnap with pocket change.

Backup is a huge business, and enterprise/business backup is an especially lucrative segment of that business. Colin has the most technically credible offering for that segment. But he captures only a tiny fraction of it, and regularly finds himself on HN explaining to HN people why Tarsnap costs so much given how cheap AWS storage is. Q.E.D.

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It’s kind of amazing that some people here believe its modest price to be Tarsnap’s main value proposition.

This sort of misunderstanding is encouraged by using one's limited supply of the customer's time and attention to highlight "picodollars" as opposed to "Considering online backups? You get to choose between a) you can retrieve your backups, b) other people can't retrieve your backups, c) a and b, but only if you won the Putnam."

In the 90's Microsoft could (presuming, perhaps unfairly, that Linus is/was rational) have bought Linux kernel for pocket change.

The community values when money/power is not the only/main driver for people creating technology. And for a good reason, I think. When we ask ourselves "why we can't have nice things", more often than not the answer is that "people in charge" are motivated by making more money, not making better stuff.

Yes, there is some naivete in this mindset. But I think some of that innocence is a good thing. FWIW, I liked patio11 more when he was excitingly writing how he earned $30k on Bingo cards then the new incarnation that is proud of using a shitty ThemeForest template because A/B tests well.

No, they could not have, because the Linux kernel is open source software. But I understand the confusion, because Colin does his level best to market Tarsnap as if that was what it was.

I am unclear on what you think the purpose of a commercial website is, given your objection to the idea of suggestions that make them perform better.

I don't really have any objections, or really any opinion on whether Colin should or should not charge more.

I was just pointing out that it is a good thing that there are smart people who are "bad at business", who are "irrational" as you put it. Many good things we have came from such irrational people (that was the point about Linux parallel) and many ugly things come from people who are only following the bottom line.

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