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What I Would Do If I Ran Tarsnap

(www.kalzumeus.com)
801 points tnorthcutt | 3 comments | 03 Apr 14 16:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.735s | source
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kruipen ◴[03 Apr 14 17:08 UTC] No.7524278[source]▶
What patio11 doesn't get, is that part of the reason why HN crowd considers tarsnap "the best backup software" is exactly because Colin Percival is what patio11 calls "bad at business" (and what I would call "motivated not only by money").

BTW, that is the same reason for the backlash over Oculus acquisition: people are upset that it will no longer be run by "bad at business" engineers like John Carmack, but instead by "very good at business" Mark Zuckerberg.

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grannyg00se ◴[03 Apr 14 17:14 UTC] No.7524338[source]▶
Exactly. What patio11 calls "Geek to Geek" business and suggests Colin move away from. Any new user who sees the suggested standard three tier pricing scheme is going to immediately recognize a traditional business. And there goes the entire g2g market. Which I suppose patio11 doesn't care about given that he's suggesting a move away from that.

But without g2g, Colin is going to be competing in a huge market with a bunch of other players. He's also likely to enjoy his business a whole lot less.

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1. jason_tko ◴[03 Apr 14 23:57 UTC] No.7528083[source]▶
Right, because geeks never buy services from traditional businesses.

Oh, wait.

>>Colin is going to be competing in a huge market with a bunch of other players. He's also likely to enjoy his business a whole lot less.

Also painfully incorrect. When you have a unique selling proposition, it's easy to compete in a huge market with a bunch of other players. It's also enjoyable.

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2. grannyg00se ◴[04 Apr 14 05:00 UTC] No.7529408[source]▶
How "painfully" self-centered. It's not about whether you consider it to be enjoyable or easy. It's about what Colin is likely to experience. And given his past reluctance to listen to similar Tarsnap related business advice thrown his way numerous times over the years, one conclusion we can draw is that he fully understands what the options are and he simply doesn't believe he would enjoy the change. There are other possibilities for his lack of change, but I didn't hear you suggest any.
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3. jason_tko ◴[04 Apr 14 06:46 UTC] No.7529731[source]▶
Well, I would not assume to guess what Colin would enjoy, or how he would enjoy it.

However I agree, it does depend on Colin's motivations. If Colin doesn't want more users, and doesn't want more money (for even the same amount of work), then your viewpoint is possibly accurate and has merit.

Other possibilities for his lack of change are clear - we do not always act in our best interests for a garden variety of reasons(negative mindsets, backgrounds, etc etc). This can be very frustrating to our friends, who might have experience and insight into our situation, and want the best for us.