Nothing is wrong with them trying, I just want to see them succeed in doing so. I was finding fault in their strategy for monetization, not in their desire to do so.

I believe customers pay for support, not for the GUI that makes support easier.

For me, the big picture is to boost ES adoption, so that the 1% of customers that pay is a bigger pie. Trying to squeeze another few hundred dollars a month out of the existing customer pool doesn't feel like a winning strategy.

But of course I"m just armchair quarter-backing: hopefully I'm wrong and ES will gain adoption because this GUI funds other developments.

Marvel is not a "big enterprise" play, its an effort to build a product that applies to a broad user base of Elasticsearch, a product that stands on merit and gives concrete value back to any user in helping them manage and monitor Elasticsearch in production. Because it applies to such a large user base, we decided to make it super affordable so anybody should be able to allow it.

Obviously, we are still providing production support subscriptions for Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana, and have been providing it for a long some time.

Gentlemen, gentlemen.

ElasticSearch sits on top of MASSIVE investment money (closed series B). Your worries about developers needing a "second job" are not substantiated. This is not an evening hobby project of a starving developer.

And there's the rub: investors want their money back.

The pace and aggression with which ES pushes its products and services must only increase from now on. Better get used to it.

Fair points, but I think it's important to highlight the distinction between Elasticsearch BV, (the company - who will try to continue to offer commercial services and support to grow their business - fair enough) and the Elasticsearch project, which is the open source project.

As a company, Elasticsearch BV will reinvest back into the Elasticsearch project, which will increase the adoption and value of their commercial services. Both exist independently, but the success of either improves the other.