The problem is, the target audience is so niche: CLI users, developers, people who value shallow dependencies, heterogenous environments, and localism. Not by any means unique or even rare, but certainly a minority. And I hate marketing and self-promotion, so it makes it difficult for me to even post release announcements.
Luckily, I’m mostly scratching my own itches, so userbase size isn’t important, but knowing that at least a few other people are getting value out of my work would be nice.
Ima clarify that: large userbases are a royal PITA. Yes, there are benefits, but the sense if obligation can be oppressive, and it’s hard to find ways of saying “no” nicely.
What software have you made? Sometimes people make me feel crazy when I tell them it’s bad to have deeply nested dependencies. Often I’ll dismiss a library if it depends on other things. I think the software world is rife with the idea that “if it works now, then my job is done”.
I relate. Marketing myself feels like lying at best, or trying to get people’s money at worst. I wish I could just say “hey I made this thing, i hope it helps in some way” without putting a price tag on it.
Yes, but it’s that act of self-promotion that is the issue, not whether you’re charging for it. It can be almost worse for OSS, because users can be astonishingly critical, demanding, and insulting about something you’re giving away for free. If I was charging for it, I would be less offended, because they’d have some justification for being irksome.
Promoting your software still feels like sales, somehow - that’s growing up in a capitalism, I guess, plus you’re opening yourself to all that criticism.
I can relate. I wrote an insanely good optimiser for the loading of data to the trading platform for a major fund management company and there are like… 2… people in the world who know and appreciate
So much software.
The problem is, the target audience is so niche: CLI users, developers, people who value shallow dependencies, heterogenous environments, and localism. Not by any means unique or even rare, but certainly a minority. And I hate marketing and self-promotion, so it makes it difficult for me to even post release announcements.
Luckily, I’m mostly scratching my own itches, so userbase size isn’t important, but knowing that at least a few other people are getting value out of my work would be nice.
Ima clarify that: large userbases are a royal PITA. Yes, there are benefits, but the sense if obligation can be oppressive, and it’s hard to find ways of saying “no” nicely.
What software have you made? Sometimes people make me feel crazy when I tell them it’s bad to have deeply nested dependencies. Often I’ll dismiss a library if it depends on other things. I think the software world is rife with the idea that “if it works now, then my job is done”.
I relate. Marketing myself feels like lying at best, or trying to get people’s money at worst. I wish I could just say “hey I made this thing, i hope it helps in some way” without putting a price tag on it.
I mean… that sounds like open source?
Yes, but it’s that act of self-promotion that is the issue, not whether you’re charging for it. It can be almost worse for OSS, because users can be astonishingly critical, demanding, and insulting about something you’re giving away for free. If I was charging for it, I would be less offended, because they’d have some justification for being irksome.
Promoting your software still feels like sales, somehow - that’s growing up in a capitalism, I guess, plus you’re opening yourself to all that criticism.
I can relate. I wrote an insanely good optimiser for the loading of data to the trading platform for a major fund management company and there are like… 2… people in the world who know and appreciate