I'm a founder. I'm extremely careful not throwing money. And I'm especially am aware of the changing environment. The internet is no longer free. You depend on a third party, you lose. The only true way is to gradually build your own infrastructure as you grow.

That's fine, but pretending like this is an objectively superior solution and the value prop of these companies doesn't exist is flat wrong.

What if someone applied your own logic to buying your product (why pay when I can get the exact same thing from free tools)? It'd be annoying and generally wrong, wouldn't it?

I'm happy to pay. To me, however, the value lies in predictability, sustainability and avoiding the risk of deplatforming. Tech companies come and go and are subject to political issues (as proven by Github). Thus, sometimes, it's wiser to pay engineers to set things up than buy a product/service.

You're shifting the conversation though, this wasn't about what your priorities are it was about whether or not the products provide value. You claimed they don't, you are now saying they do provide value?

I never said those products don't provide value, I only said they're not exceptional in providing that value and that value can be obtained by carefully considering alternative solutions.

> There's really not a lot of reasons to use Gitlab or Github or Slack or a number of other services.

That is completely different from what you are saying now...

Also, "that value can be found elsewhere" is a devious little shift in the meaning of the word "value" in "value prop". Nice try but no, that isn't the same thing.