A big part of the issue is that there is a general assumption that the execs are making the companies MORE profitable, as opposed to the reality that they are trying to make them profitable at all.
Enshitification happens because things start awesome and free to attract users. Once there is enough base they start to change things such that they can eventually make money.
The only way to avoid this is to self fund and stop assuming Web apps are free.
The only way to about this is to self fund and stop assuming Web apps are free.
It’s possible to make web apps that are close to free, but that isn’t how developers work these days. Everybody has to use JavaScript, Kubernetes, Docker, and a 500-person developer/infrastructure team. When in reality, 99.999% of websites could be made without JavaScript, hosted on a single VPS with SQLite.
A couple of my side projects run on 1GB VPS that cost $10/month, and they would easily run on a 512MB VPS if those were still offered.
Everybody has to use JavaScript, Kubernetes, Docker, and a 500-person developer/infrastructure team. When in reality, 99.999% of websites could be made without JavaScript, hosted on a single VPS with SQLite.
There are legit reasons to use k8s and docker even on a small project. It ensures that your dependencies are isolated from those of the host OS. Gone are the days where you have to worry about multiple different services clashing because they all want to use the same ports, directories etc by default or different versions of the same service.
I’m also done being called at 2AM in the morning because the security team decided to automatically update all servers and forgot we were on the exemption list. Now our install is broken and nobody remembers what the original configuration was. So we spend 8 hours in a “war room” trying to unscramble our eggs.
Docker makes everything infinitely more stable and it’s not that big of a deal to get running. It’s better than the old days of controlled chaos.
I don’t necessarily disagree. There are many ways to achieve the same or similar results. But docker seems to have become the popular option to the point where services are offering docker configurations out of the box. Meaning I have a standard, officially sanctioned way of doing what you described. Someone has already figured out how to properly containerize what to me is only a dependency and I can focus my efforts elsewhere. The option to get my hands dirty is still available, but it becomes a choice.
A big part of the issue is that there is a general assumption that the execs are making the companies MORE profitable, as opposed to the reality that they are trying to make them profitable at all.
Enshitification happens because things start awesome and free to attract users. Once there is enough base they start to change things such that they can eventually make money.
The only way to avoid this is to self fund and stop assuming Web apps are free.
It’s possible to make web apps that are close to free, but that isn’t how developers work these days. Everybody has to use JavaScript, Kubernetes, Docker, and a 500-person developer/infrastructure team. When in reality, 99.999% of websites could be made without JavaScript, hosted on a single VPS with SQLite.
A couple of my side projects run on 1GB VPS that cost $10/month, and they would easily run on a 512MB VPS if those were still offered.
There are legit reasons to use k8s and docker even on a small project. It ensures that your dependencies are isolated from those of the host OS. Gone are the days where you have to worry about multiple different services clashing because they all want to use the same ports, directories etc by default or different versions of the same service.
I’m also done being called at 2AM in the morning because the security team decided to automatically update all servers and forgot we were on the exemption list. Now our install is broken and nobody remembers what the original configuration was. So we spend 8 hours in a “war room” trying to unscramble our eggs.
Docker makes everything infinitely more stable and it’s not that big of a deal to get running. It’s better than the old days of controlled chaos.
None of those things require Docker or Kubernetes… You can use containers + cgroups without adding complexity on top.
I don’t necessarily disagree. There are many ways to achieve the same or similar results. But docker seems to have become the popular option to the point where services are offering docker configurations out of the box. Meaning I have a standard, officially sanctioned way of doing what you described. Someone has already figured out how to properly containerize what to me is only a dependency and I can focus my efforts elsewhere. The option to get my hands dirty is still available, but it becomes a choice.