Tailscale raises $100M

With such a huge investment comes the obligation to eventually pay it back. Is this another one of my favourite tools going the way of Dropbox, 1Password and all other companies that were formed around what should be a platform feature, which took on way too large investment sums and were eventually forced to become the everything, losing sight of their core values?

I sincerely hope not, but there's so much bad precedent.

It’s a basic web UX over a built in Linux kernel feature

There are Docker containerized apps that manage Wireguard too

Maybe contribute to one and fret less about behavior of VC funded business and wondering if they’re actually respecting your privacy to accomplish finance goals

It handles a lot more than that, right? It does all of the key distribution and rotation which is a pain.

If they can do it it’s not impossible (they’re just people after all).

With an open source implementation out there, anyone can do it merely pulling a Docker container, and without paying Tailscale.

Regardless I manage a dozen users with no issue using Embarks container; once they’re setup I touch nothing.

Paying people is not working with people; it’s working with a specific group. Open source is working with people.

If the open source implementation is equally good, I'm sure people will use that instead of Tailscale. That Tailscale exists makes me suspect that the open source implementation - as is usually the case with these "just use curlftpfs!" comments – is not equally good.

The reality is that making software, like any other human endeavour, takes time and energy. Paying one another money is a rather well-established mechanism of rewarding and incentivising that time and energy (since not everyone wants to work free of charge to make and maintain software for you, out of the goodness of their hearts, no matter how much you insist that you're owed their unpaid labour).

There are small and local means of getting free food, or free woodworking, etc, but the general reality is that a high-quality high-dependency maintained product, over the long term, is more feasible when it's paid.