Twitter ‘smytes’ customers

Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by mindcrime on Friday June 22, 2018 @12:12PM (#17375100)

And while he was doing that, how many features could he have added that would increase revenue for the company?

There's more to building a long-term, sustainable business than optimizing revenue at any cost. And part of that "more" is exactly the work you to do insure against future risks.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by scarface74 on Friday June 22, 2018 @12:27PM (#17375251)

What’s more likely to happen first - Amazon will stop offering an AWS service that you depend on at a price you are willing to pay or that the system you are building will become obsolete and when the time comes to replace it, you can choose different infrastructure? I would even say that your company going out of business is a bigger risk than depending on AWS.

The old saying that no one ever got fired for choosing IBM could be applied equally to AWS. The companies that chose IBM in the 70s and 80s can still buy new compatible systems. The companies that chose Stratus or VAX, not so much.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by mindcrime on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:34PM (#17375780)

What’s more likely to happen first - Amazon will stop offering an AWS service that you depend on at a price you are willing to pay or that the system you are building will become obsolete and when the time comes to replace it, you can choose different infrastructure?

I think you're committing something of a "fallacy of the excluded middle" here. Those aren't the only two things that can happen. AWS could, for example, continue offering the service but not to you. We've already heard stories of AWS accounts being closed for various reasons, and it's hardly a stretch to imagine a CloudFront / Daily Stormer kind of scenario where Amazon decides to punt you for taking an unpopular political position, etc.

I would even say that your company going out of business is a bigger risk than depending on AWS.

I would say that I disagree, in at least some cases.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by neuromantik8086 on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:27PM (#17375734)

You're kind of operating on hindsight bias here.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by scarface74 on Friday June 22, 2018 @01:38PM (#17375815)

Let’s take today’s equivalent - what’s the likelihood of Amazon not offering AWS or even Microsoft walking away from Azure and pulling the rug out from under developers?

Even businesses that chose Microsoft technology in the 90s when they were the clear leader have had a relatively painless upgrade and support path. They abandoned VB6 15 years ago, but you can still wrap your VB6 code as a COM object and interact with C#.

I’m saying that it is the safer bet to go with the largest provider with the largest customer base. In the 80s that would be IBM, in the 90s, MS over SUN (and the royal claustrof%%% that Java has become under Oracle) or Borland.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by neuromantik8086 on Friday June 22, 2018 @04:17PM (#17377011)

What is the "largest customer base" relative to? In the early 2000s, most Fortune 100s used Solaris [1]- presumably this trend started in the 90s, so I don't know why you think that a manager during that time period would choose Microsoft over Sun except for specific use cases (e.g., smaller hosting providers).

Let's look at yesterday's equivalent to AWS- Sun Grid. Sun was viewed back during the first dotcom era in much the same way that AWS is today. All that it would take to completely bork it would be an economic catastrophe that mirrors the first dotcom bubble. Obviously, Sun Grid is no more.

[1] https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/11/16/solaris_remain...

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by scarface74 on Friday June 22, 2018 @05:09PM (#17377375)

Solaris didn’t disappear overnight like Smyte did. When Sun was acquired by Oracle they just didn’t abandon thier customers - that would have been too value destroying.

You can still buy Solaris based systems today but you would have plenty of time to migrate. But seeing the writing on the wall you would have plenty of time to migrate.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by brazzledazzle on Friday June 22, 2018 @12:35PM (#17375331)

I think there’s a balance you can strike between things. But it’s not always a single variable. Learning those things was probably valuable to him in other ways though. If he eventually grows his service and has to hire someone to manage ops he’ll be much more capable of evaluating them.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by jimbokun on Friday June 22, 2018 @02:29PM (#17376173)

Because his service scales so well, it is bringing in a lot of revenue for the company (sorry, don't know the exact amount), at a very low cost. He is a very productive developer.

Whatever his salary is as an engineer, he is definitely underpaid.

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Re:Twitter ‘smytes’ customers by scarface74 on Friday June 22, 2018 @10:49PM (#17379235)

Since I have mostly avoided doing side projects outside of work to learn something new [1], I understand spending extra time at work to scratch an itch and doing a low priority project as long as it doesn’t interfere with revenue generating - or cost reducing - initiatives.

[1] I would much rather work on a work related project using a new to me technology and if it requires longer hours to complete it, I’m find with putting in the extra time. It seems like more of a win, I get to learn a new technology, get to see it actually be used by others, and it will be helpful during either review time or worse case a resume builder.

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