[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for ...
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Show HN: I made CSS Pro, a re-imagined Devtools for web design
Author : guivr
Score : 436 points
Date : 2023-06-01 08:47 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (csspro.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (csspro.com)
| recursive wrote:
| This generally looks pretty cool, but on my machine, the "pick
| any color you need" demo doesn't work. As I mouse over the image,
| it seems to be generating completely random colors for each
| pixel, with no correlation to the color that's actually there.
| coxley wrote:
| Whoa, this is _very_ nice! I 'm going to buy when I kickstart
| some upcoming web work.
|
| The price won't be for everyone -- but you don't need everyone.
| :)
| beeburrt wrote:
| This tool looks amazing!
|
| That music in the video gives me anxiety
| replwoacause wrote:
| Beautiful website, video, and product. I was also a bit shocked
| by the price. FWIW, as a hobbyist I wouldn't subscribe unless it
| was $5/month or less but would pay $150 for a one-time perpetual
| license but I'm sure you'll find your consumer as the pro level.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I was reading the uprising against the pricing, was expecting who
| knows what, these people are ridiculous to say the least, pitiful
| at average, you get paid who knows how much, but then 30dollars
| to do your job quicker are a nono, from a indie developer?
| Remembers me of the uprising of millions-dollars companies
| against docker, some people have no shame
| low_tech_punk wrote:
| Comparison with https://visbug.web.app/ (free as in beer, and
| open source)?
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| This is one of the more impressive and polished "Show HNs" I've
| seen recently. The landing page is superb, the tool is impressive
| and the ease of trying it out with the "Try on this page" is
| really great.
|
| I think I'm inclined to agree on some of the other comments about
| pricing. It doesn't sit quite right in comparison to what I pay
| for other paid tools that I use daily.
|
| I can see myself using something like this, and I don't mind
| paying for great software, but there is something about the
| $30/month entry price that just stops me considering it further.
| Maybe I need to actually use it to understand that it's worth
| this, but it's not clear enough to me coming to it cold.
|
| One criticism. I clicked on the "Try on this page" to test it
| out, and after being initially impressed I clicked on "Try it
| Free" in the menu, assuming this was a link to see what
| free/trial options were available, but the link didn't do
| anything. It took several page refreshes and re-clicking this to
| realise that this was just doubling up the function of the "Try
| on this page" option and in fact there is no free trial
| available.
|
| Overall though, seriously impressive work.
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| I've been working with CSS for a while now and most time spent is
| on:
|
| - tackling of inconsistent browser behaviour and bugs on top of
| cross-browser compatibility
|
| - RWD
|
| - pixel perfect implementation of designs
|
| - extending or replacing native input elements
|
| And very little of it has to do with color gradient selectors or
| pixel to em conversion.
| hathym wrote:
| seems awesome but exorbitant pricing compared to other similar
| tools
| sangupta wrote:
| This is an awesome tool, however, the pricing is lot costly to
| subscribe as most of these tools are already available for free.
|
| * Ruler - Dimensions for Chrome * Assets - Easily get from
| network tab * Eyedropper - Digital color meter on MacOS * Custom
| CSS - Stylebot for Chrome
|
| The only tool that I personally don't know is the color palette
| from the page - but then Eyedropper itself can do it.
|
| And thus comes the question, why should I pay $30 per month for
| tools that are available for free to a developer?
| kamikaz1k wrote:
| can you please link to those referenced tools? thank you
| sangupta wrote:
| Dimensions: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dimensi
| ons/baocaag...
|
| Save All Resources:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/save-all-
| resources...
|
| Stylebot: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/
| oiaejidbm...
| IceDane wrote:
| This just .. doesn't seem that useful compared to the normal
| devtools. It is also noticeably laggy, based on the demo on your
| site, with pop-in/FOUC. Definitely not worth $30/m for me. That
| pricing just seems way unrealistic compared to the value
| proposition. Easy pass for me.
| hrdwdmrbl wrote:
| I would pay if you could show me the formula for how measurements
| are calculated.
|
| The most common question I'm always asking myself is: Why is this
| like this? For many properties the browser can tell you which CSS
| selector "won" a property such as "font-family".
|
| But for something like a width, the actual formula being applied
| is often hard to puzzle out. The browser will tell you its result
| but now how it arrived at that result.
|
| For example, the element with id "pagespace" on this page. It has
| width that works out to some px depending on your screen width.
| But why that width specifically? I can personally figure it out
| by going up the DOM tree to see that each element is the full
| width of its parent (and that's how display: table-row, table-
| row-group and table all work) until we get to the "hnmain"
| element which is 85% width (of its parent). And then its parent
| is the body which has 8px margin all around. So the formula is
| something like: (screen-width - 8px * 2) * 0.85. But that took me
| how long to figure out manually?
|
| Show your work!
| aosaigh wrote:
| The killer feature here would be hooking this up to
| Netlify/Vercel etc. and having a 2-way-write. Every time you
| update something in the CSSPro editor, your codebase is actually
| updated and the site is rebuilt in the background. This would let
| you essentially design in the browser and avoid the tedious
| copy/paste, rebuild, reload cycle.
| XCSme wrote:
| I wonder if there is a way to "export changes to git", such
| that you can download some sort of script (or apply some
| cherry-picked git changes) from an external source?
|
| In this case, you would press "export changes to git" and then
| somehow apply them to your local repo, and bam, all the changes
| transferred without having to actually change any files.
|
| One problem with this is that the changes in the browser are
| done on the distribution (bundled) files. Maybe using source-
| maps it could still be possible.
| JayStavis wrote:
| 100% agree. This would be a killer integration in vercel
| preview deployments (a la comments feature)
|
| Triplex has some of that 2-way sync for frontend to code:
| https://triplex.dev/docs/overview
| ckolkey wrote:
| How would that work with VCS?
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| The changes exist in the file system of wherever the server
| runs. Presumably in the repo if code. Run your git commands
| to see what is changed and select what to commit.
| nailer wrote:
| After you make changes, if you like them, you can commit
| them.
| shireboy wrote:
| This is what I've wanted for ages from browser dev tools. It's
| now fairly standard to have hot refresh where the dev server
| uses websockets to control injecting changes and refreshing the
| browser when changes are made in the code files. I want to go
| the other way. If I tweak css in browser, have a way to write
| those changes back to the project. The real challenge would be
| traversing a change in browser css back to scss/less.
| towawy wrote:
| Chrome Dev Tools has had that feature (for css specifically,
| not transpiled languages) for years.
| https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/workspaces/
|
| We used to have full WYSIWYG editors in browsers as far back
| as the 90s (including deployment via FTP). Specialized
| editors just seem to have always been the preference for
| developers.
| umaar wrote:
| You can do this with Workspaces and it works well. Made a
| video on this here: https://moderndevtools.com/lessons/12
| mrieck wrote:
| This tool is for front-end devs who love tweaking front-end
| designs faster.
|
| My tool is for back-end devs who don't want anything to do with
| front-end, but want to build UI faster. https://www.snipcss.com
|
| I've always wondered how CSSPro works at extracting/scoping CSS
| because that's supposed to be a feature. But I've never been
| willing to pay $30/mon just to see how well a competitor works.
| Anyone who pays - do you think it recreates a carbon copy of any
| section of a website well?
| bilekas wrote:
| This does look really cool and its really responsive and
| definitely a very handy tool.
|
| For me personally I wouldn't use it enough to justify the price
| tag. Depending on your business plan it might make sense to offer
| some kind of day/week pass. This would definitely interest me as
| I would be more of a infrequent user.
| rylan-talerico wrote:
| As a non-technical product manager, this tool could be valuable
| to me if it works as well as the website illustrates.
|
| I agree with the concern expressed in other comments re: price,
| especially considering the lack of a free tier or trial.
|
| The marketing site is great. Congrats on your launch!
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Looks slick, but another rental thing?
|
| Not even going to download it. Good luck though.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| This is fantastic. I've been using CSS Scan for years on an
| almost daily basis. It's so incredibly useful. Whenever I wanted
| to quickly see how a design was done, I'd hit the button and
| hover and get instant info that was quicker and easier than
| having to delve into the developer tools. The ability to quickly
| copy and paste with it is great. Now with all the extra features,
| it's a really great set of tools and removes the need for me to
| have separate tools for some of that functionality (including the
| super buggy eyedropper utilities I've been using). I did not even
| hesitate to buy it.
|
| Amazing work! Ignore the critics.
| pokepim wrote:
| [dead]
| syntex wrote:
| Personally, I find the cost a bit steep. Truth be told, I don't
| frequently tinker with CSS, maybe only a couple of times
| annually. A lifetime license for $39.99, however, would
| definitely be a deal I'd gladly snap up, no more, no less.
| [deleted]
| WolfOliver wrote:
| 30$ per month seems overkill
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| classified wrote:
| Yet another subscription, for a novelty item to boot. Hell, no!
| nbzso wrote:
| Fix the pricing. Figma is 20 USD monthly. Framer is 10, Webflow
| is 18, with hosting.
| onion2k wrote:
| To be honest it sounds like Figma, Framer, and Webflow are the
| ones that need to fix their pricing.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| they're all hugely successful, so good luck with that
| onion2k wrote:
| I mean they should charge _more_.
| gnaman wrote:
| The product works offline. There should also be a perpetual
| license for the versions I've already paid for. Paying for
| products that are completely offline but still require
| subscription is ludicrous. Adobe justifies it by throwing in
| CC. Paying monthly for this makes no sense.
| ta-run wrote:
| Is it just me or does the site perform horribly?
|
| PS: have h/w acceleration disabled.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I clicked the "try it on this page", and it's really cool! I
| don't really know web design so obviously there's parts I don't
| understand, but it's a hell of a lot easier than me trying to
| Google things for 2 hours, editing some text, and refreshing a
| page. Kudos!
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| This is mostly for the visual types. Designers tend to have an
| inner picture they want to see/create, so they know what to
| create.
| gervwyk wrote:
| This!! Really would like to be a customer on this, but as someone
| who edits pages like once a month maybe, it's hard to justify the
| price.. But you totally nailed the workflow as far as I can tell
| from the video. I always jump into the inspector to tweak, and it
| is never a good time.
|
| I might just buy it anyway...
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| This looks great and I'm not against charging for tools -- I'm
| not even against subscriptions (even tho they often annoy me
| personally), but the value prop here doesn't seem to match $30 a
| month (or $15 if you do annual).
|
| And it isn't because I'm cheap -- I spend lots of money on lots
| of stuff -- or that I don't value indie development (same), but
| this pricing puts this utility in the same class as things like
| Figma, the Adobe Suite, a lot of CMSes (Webflow, Craft, etc.) for
| a utility that might be useful, but doesn't strike me as $360 a
| year (or even $180 a year) useful.
|
| The value prop just isn't here for me, even tho I like what this
| is trying to do. At $5 a month/$50 a year, I think you'd get more
| traction and much better volume than what you can get at $30 a
| month/$180 a year prepaid.
|
| And I have to say, when I see prices this high, I'm hesitant to
| prepay from unknown companies because I don't have any
| expectation about how long it will be in business or continue to
| update the product, because I don't see how you get sustainable
| development at this price point. Figma and Adobe can charge what
| they charge because they've earned it and because those are tools
| where you feel like you get your money's worth.
|
| $30 a month for something that will improve but not fundamentally
| change the way I do web dev, I'm sorry but no.
| aidenbuis wrote:
| Look amazing!
| masukomi wrote:
| a) wow cool. b) if i did CSS for a living i'd install and try it
| out, but i only dabble when forced to, and dabbling isn't worth
| $30 a month.
|
| good luck.
| progx wrote:
| Cool tool, but reconsider the pricing.
| POiNTx wrote:
| I think it looks great!
|
| For the pricing, consider adding tiers depending on the type of
| user. What you're asking for now is perfectly fine for companies.
| But for individual developers I think it's a bit steep.
|
| Also a demo that you can test out in the wild for maybe a week or
| so would be interesting, or a generous 7 day refund policy.
|
| Good luck!
| kirillrogovoy wrote:
| If you use Tailwind and React, you might like Impulse[1]
| (disclaimer: I made it and use it almost daily)
|
| Not only does it provide means for visual editing (for Tailwind
| only), but it also saves all changes to your code.
|
| Free and open source.
|
| [1] https://impulse.dev/
| Thonn wrote:
| To be honest, the pricing really does feel fair for what it
| offers. I just don't wanna spend money on a monthly subscription,
| and its too much of an unknown to throw 900$ at it.
| itomato wrote:
| Mozilla Composer for today?
| jw1224 wrote:
| If this had some way to convert to/from Tailwind classes, I would
| purchase in an instant...
| greggh wrote:
| Use this tool, take the output and put it in this one:
|
| https://hymhub.github.io/css-to-tailwind/
| umaar wrote:
| Using DevTools, you can extract all styles, even if they're
| scattered across loads of tailwind utility classes. Made a
| video on how to do this here: https://umaar.com/dev-
| tips/261-devtools-copy-all-styles-for-...
| graderjs wrote:
| This is a wonderful interface! Great UX, really landmark,
| effortless design! Reminds me of Bret Victor, and the top notch
| best products to come out of Apple and Google. You have produced
| something that big companies spend millions, thousands of
| developer and designer hours, and months to build. You are truly
| awesome! Thank you for inspiring the world with this awesome
| work!!! :) ;P xx ;p
|
| Do you have a GitHub or place where we can see more of your work?
| Thank you for laboring in obscurity until you produced this
| magnum opus masterpiece. This guy is example of why you should
| never give up. :) ;p xx ;p
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Are you a chat gpt bot?
| brentis wrote:
| Came here to see comments about pricing. I think inline with
| others.Expected a nominal 1 time fee. Probably up to $60. $30/mo
| is more than Photoshop.
| onion2k wrote:
| A comment to address the pricing that everyone is complaining
| about:
|
| A web designer/developer in a decent, profitable company is
| probably getting paid $100k at least.
|
| Assuming 250 working days a year with 8 hours a day of paid
| time, that's roughly $0.8/minute.
|
| If this tool saves that person 90 seconds a day finding and
| tweaking things in a design then it's saving more than
| $30/month worth of their time.
|
| It's quite cheap.
|
| The fact Adobe charge _waaaaaaay_ too little for PS is another
| matter entirely.
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| > A web designer/developer in a decent, profitable company is
| probably getting paid $100k at least.
|
| In the US maybe. Definitely not here in Italy and probably in
| most of Europe.
| onion2k wrote:
| Even if someone is paid 1/3 of the US wage it only means
| you need to save 3* as much time. It's still _quite_ cheap.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > If this tool saves that person 90 seconds a day finding and
| tweaking things in a design then it's saving more than
| $30/month worth of their time.
|
| As pointed out elsewhere, it's saving the _business_ more
| than $30 /m, not the developer.
|
| The developer doesn't get to pocket the savings. Their reward
| for "saving" 4 hours a week is an extra 4 hours of work per
| week.
| TekMol wrote:
| This could also be a bookmarklet. That would make it more secure
| as bookmarklets only have access to the page you use them on.
|
| Looking at the code, you can indeed run it as a bookmarklet. I
| went to https://www.example.com and typed this in the browser
| console: s1=document.createElement('script');
| s1.src='https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.0.slim.min.js';
| document.head.appendChild(s1);
| s2=document.createElement('script');
| s2.onload=()=>window.cssProReady();
| s2.src='https://csspro.com/demo-build/mainnewnew.js';
| document.head.appendChild(s2);
|
| Boom! The tool is running.
|
| So prefixing that line with "javascript:" and putting it into a
| bookmark would let you use it on any site you wish, simply by
| clicking the bookmark. Without having to install an extension.
|
| Would be a good alternative the author could offer imho.
| evanreichard wrote:
| Any site that has a half decent Content Security Policy would
| prevent this. (You can try on HN, GitHub, etc and it fails)
|
| However it may work as a UserScript depending on the UserScript
| engine.
| revskill wrote:
| The lifecycle of a startup:
|
| - Build MVP
|
| - Raise funding
|
| - Build pricing structure
|
| - Eventually die and open source anything for many reason.
| Pricing is one such reason.
|
| Without free pricing tier, how can you get new users to play with
| your product ? (if it's not open source).
| samwillis wrote:
| I think the comments criticising the pricing are wrong, you can't
| compare one generalist tool to another highly specialised tool.
| But on top of that comparing to Figma, Framer or other VC backed
| products is a mistake, these products are priced to capture
| market share and grow rabidly. They are clearly underpriced. I
| may be wrong but CSS Pro looks like a small bootstrapped product,
| pricing for market growth doesn't need to be the strategy. This
| is priced for sustainable development and supporting the
| developer on a small niche product.
|
| If a developer/designer is using this 1 day in 5 then they can
| justify the subscription.
|
| To those suggesting this shouldn't be a subscription, keep in
| mind that CSS is going through a period of rapid improvements,
| this enables them to add support for new features without having
| to either eat the cost on a sold product or charge for upgrades
| multiple times a year.
|
| VC backed business setting low prices for rapid growth has
| unfortunately damaged the ability for small indie developers to
| price their products sustainably.
| SlowAndCalm wrote:
| On the subscription side, I think it's an issue as it moves the
| control away from the consumer when doing those upgrades. With
| the older, one-time purchase upgrade model, which has since
| fallen out of favour; I could evaluate once a year whether the
| updated product was worth the additional cost. With a
| subscription model, there's a chance I could end up funding the
| development of features that I neither want nor need.
| toastal wrote:
| And CSS will almost always be backwards-compatible. If you
| want to keep using older CSS, that should be allowed.
| lolinder wrote:
| The old model was tightly coupled to the CD as distribution
| vector--you got what came on the disk, nothing more. It was
| easy to understand for everyone involved, and the path of
| least resistance for the developers
|
| The internet changed that, because people began to expect you
| to fix bugs in a released product indefinitely. Declaring
| that you are all done fixing bugs is now not just an obvious
| necessity given the infeasibility of distributing small
| updates on CDs, it's now a conscious decision that has to be
| explained to the customer in sufficiently clear terms that
| they don't come complaining to you later. Failing that, you
| just have to plan on supporting a purchase indefinitely, and
| the easiest way to organize that is as a subscription for a
| single main release channel.
|
| JetBrains has what could be a good model for products that
| lend themselves to a regular release cadence--it's a
| subscription, but you keep the license for the version that
| was current on the day of your last payment. But not every
| product lends itself to that kind of regular, predictable
| release cadence.
| conductr wrote:
| You could also just cancel when you realize it's not worth it
| instead of sinking a large upfront on it only to find it
| didn't fit into your workflow. I find that a benefit as even
| very loved and low priced software often just doesn't fit my
| personal desired ways of working.
|
| I'll try it because of hype/marketing/good Show HN/etc, and
| then never really adopt it. So my thought is it's better to
| just make it easy to cancel the subscription otherwise I'd
| probably never even try it.
| nicce wrote:
| Many investor backed businesses also might increase their
| pricing over the years. At the moment you reach enough users,
| especially users which are highly dependent on you, you
| increase the prices to make shareholders happy.
|
| This is unfortunately a very common strategy, and I rather pay
| for indie developer bit more than a tech company with a large
| amount of investors.
| [deleted]
| T3RMINATED wrote:
| [dead]
| tfsh wrote:
| I was sceptical given the name "CSS Pro", but watching the video,
| this seems like an extremely polished product.
|
| One note of interest to me was the real-time measurements of
| image contents, I'd be interested to know how this is being done
| and what model's returning image-coordinate data
| Y-bar wrote:
| It's hard to see from the short quick demo videos on the site,
| but how does it handle rules? My workflow _always_ includes
| determining things like default margins, default paddings,
| default text sizes, and how they relate to each other.
|
| So, I will say default `main div` margin will be 2rem. While
| default padding on those blocks will be 1rem, how will this help
| me visualise adjusting these? It looks like all I am doing is
| changing individual elements.
| abraham wrote:
| Reminds me of https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/ProjectVisBug
| rifty wrote:
| Oh cool, I didn't realize this was an extension. Orion has it
| built in as a Develop menu item.
| iguana_lawyer wrote:
| $30/month? Are you high?
| pyrelight wrote:
| Yeah I don't know where the pricing is coming from. $30/mo is
| like Creative Cloud levels and this is not comparable to the
| utility/functionality you'd get from even one of Adobe's tools.
|
| I'd probably pull the trigger on this for $3-$5/mo.
| iamsahebgiri wrote:
| [dead]
| davidguetta wrote:
| Life saving pro tip : add a free tiers or at least 1 month free
| sodimel wrote:
| This website makes my fans go brrrr.
| danr4 wrote:
| Looks really useful for non-technical people. I don't think you
| are charging too much but I do think your pricing/market is
| misaligned.
|
| If you're going to charge this amount you probably want to target
| product/design teams in mid to large enterprises, then charge by
| seat (with limited trial for up-sell).
| madeofpalk wrote:
| There's some neat things in here - the gradient editor showing
| the stops on the element is pretty nice.
|
| But overall the _design_ of this tool is very difficult for me to
| use. It 's trying too hard to be pretty, at the expensive of
| utility. I found the Typography section to be really difficult to
| grok with a complete lack of labels and borders around text
| boxes. It's neat that you have the same flexbox controls that
| Webflow had in 2015, but the way those icons are laid out makes
| it so inscruitable.
| itsuka wrote:
| For gradient tool, I can recommend https://gradient.style by
| Adam Argyle
|
| Not only is it easy to use (IMO), but it's also more powerful
| than what design tools offered today, with new color spaces
| being one of my favorite features.
|
| Intro: https://twitter.com/argyleink/status/1649124742463623169
| o1y32 wrote:
| It is funny that they actually show gradient in the demo (and
| some very weird abd ridiculous examples). Serious websites
| rarely have any gradient background, and this part of the tool
| is easily replaceable -- there are lots of websites that help
| you create the CSS. I use gradient background maybe once a
| year, and I wouldn't even mind doing it by hand.
| aldanor wrote:
| "CSS with clicks, not code" honestly sounds like a disadvantage
| without reading deep into it; the less clicks, the better.
| wg0 wrote:
| This is jaw dropping amount of work TBH. Just curious how much
| time and effort that is. If it is an indie thing, it is too much
| work looking at that many tools within a tool.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| The author has written a bunch of similar extensions in the
| past. I am sure a lot of that code was reused.
| o1y32 wrote:
| Looks like this is meant for professional web developers to make
| their life easier. So it is not here to replace wix. So,
|
| 1. I am struggling to understand the value proposition of this.
| Demo is cool but most developers working in an organization will
| not use most of the features shown here. No, no rotation or fancy
| fonts or colors. The only thing they will do is to use the
| standard font or color. And most elements don't use any
| backgrounds, and if they do they use one of the three predefined
| colors as the background. Gradient color? Maybe once a year. You
| can already do spacing stuff and text modification in the chrome
| devtools. I know this tool seems to make it easier, but is it
| worth paying money for it? I just don't see myself or any
| medium/large organization (e.g. Microsoft) paying $30/month.
| Figma is expensive but that is a whole product by itself. It
| enables new workflow and is irreplaceable in many ways, but I
| don't see this tool being the same. 2. Demo does not seem to
| tackle one of the biggest pain points -- layout. Based on
| stackoverflow questions and their upvote numbers plus what I see
| in my company, many people (including new and experienced
| developers) have trouble handling various methods of layout and
| arranging items. That is where this tool could help -- if done
| correctly. 3. What if someone makes a similar, open-source tool
| that achieves 50% of this, or the core features that people
| actually use every day? Can this compete at all? I'll be
| surprised if something doesn't already exist today.
|
| Basically, this is all interesting stuff but I can't see how it
| is a viable business if you charge $30/month.
| dmix wrote:
| You probably aren't the target market, you'd typically ask the
| company you work for to pay for it or if you're a freelancer
| and use dev tools daily for this CSS stuff (which I've
| personally done at various times in my career) you just factor
| it into your business expenses.
|
| It's not like a random person paying for Netflix. $30 is a
| reasonable ask.
|
| > What if someone makes a similar, open-source tool that
| achieves 50% of this, or the core features that people actually
| use every day
|
| In the video there's a serious amount of functionality, that
| would take someone doing this as a hobby a very long time. And
| most OSS design-wise typically doesn't look as good or polished
| (designers care about that). That's usually the difference, the
| time/effort a commercial company can put in vs volunteer OSS
| teams.
| onion2k wrote:
| _What if someone makes a similar, open-source tool that
| achieves 50% of this..._
|
| Would you need to mount it locally with curlftpfs if you're on
| Linux?
| no_wizard wrote:
| To anyone who doesn't understand the reference, its about the
| now somewhat infamous Dropbox comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| kwanbix wrote:
| Looks very cool. Sadly, it is very expensive for our small
| startup though (we are already paying github, jira, confluence,
| google suite, figma, miro, adobe, etc.).
| asnyder wrote:
| If you're looking to save a few dollars check out WikiJS as a
| confluence replacement (can import too), pretty, easier, works
| with OAuth out of the box, and you can self host on pretty much
| any instance.
|
| Also, figma has figjams which is similar to Miro for many use
| cases.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Why do you pay for Miro?
| skilled wrote:
| How does the element copying work?
|
| > Copy the designs of your favorite websites, frameworks, or
| themes. Extract the HTML and CSS code of an element and all its
| children in seconds.
|
| > Not the right element you're looking for? Precisely re-target
| any DOM element using your keyboard's arrow keys (^ V).
|
| The documentation talks about it a little bit but not much.
|
| I am wondering if this feature is another cheapskate
| implementation that doesn't actually do what it says it does. How
| for example would this tool handle the Firebase[0] featured
| header?
|
| The other features look OK, but I don't think I could justify the
| price though. If you want to charge for it so much, maybe change
| your pricing to a yearly license and then do updates, and simply
| restrict new updates to people who stop subscribing. Seems like a
| lot more reasonable approach and it also gives you a chance to
| really work on extending this product beyond what it currently
| does.
|
| [0]: https://firebase.blog/posts/2023/05/whats-new-at-google-io
| city17 wrote:
| Does anyone know a good extension that just does the hover /
| inspect element for the CSS styles in a nice way like this app?
|
| Seems much more convenient than diving into dev tools every time
| you want to quickly check an element's property. 30/month is a
| bit excessive for just that one function.
| kristopolous wrote:
| It's a clever idea and it's super simple
|
| Add an event listener on the entire document.body
|
| Get the event.target and the style and then descend to the
| children. Put it formatted in the clipboard.
|
| Then do it as a bookmarklet and deregister the click handler
| when you're done so you can continue interacting with the site
|
| It's probably around 12 lines of modern js.
|
| You can add a fancy graphical outline to know what you're
| selecting with a few more lines. Just make sure you draw it on
| top and don't modify the elements. Use a css filter to make it
| work on all elements.
|
| Modern tooling is pretty great.
| city17 wrote:
| Thanks, I was thinking of a similar solution too, but the
| tricky part is filtering and finding the right CSS properties
| to display. From my quick attempt this is a non-trivial task
| as there is no easy built-in way to get just the computed
| styles of classes on the specific element and those of its
| close ancestors. And even among those, not all are always
| relevant.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Does anyone know a good extension that just does the hover /
| inspect element for the CSS styles in a nice way like this
| app?_
|
| I think the same person makes CSS Scan ($95 lifetime):
| https://getcssscan.com/
| hit8run wrote:
| Looks interesting and polished. 30 per month is too much compared
| to 10 per month for a tool like sketch.
| kwanbix wrote:
| You can get the Adobe suite for that much.
| theaussiestew wrote:
| This looks exceptional, keep it up. But like others the price is
| too much for me to afford. Would be great if this was open source
| but I can understand wanting to keep this closed source, given
| its quality.
| gigatexal wrote:
| amazing tool -- too expensive for me -- but those that find it
| valuable I am sure will pay for it. There's no shame in asking
| for a relatively high price for a tool that is obviously very
| well crafted.
| kwanbix wrote:
| Same here. Very cool looking, but today everything is a
| subscription. And we are a bootstrapped statup, in the end it
| adds a lot.
| jroseattle wrote:
| Just a suggestion on pricing: drop the lifetime option.
|
| I've had a bunch of perpetual licenses I've acquired over a
| lifetime, and nearly every one of them have said "we have no
| record of you" after 5+ years. I know, I know...save the receipts
| and all that. But it's just frustrating.
|
| Don't put yourself and your customer in a potentially problematic
| position of he-said-she-said. When you have recurring revenue
| with a more mature product (and a way to track those
| subscriptions that you won't end up scrapping), re-consider the
| perpetual license.
| spyke112 wrote:
| I'll be the one suggesting to keep the option. I haven't tried
| the product yet, but I would in general expect a perpetual life
| time license to be some sort of license key, that can be
| entered into the application and verified. So that I can keep
| it safe, and forever proof that I own a license, thus
| eliminating the problem mentioned here.
| smcleod wrote:
| The demo music sounds like the load screen for a Call Of Duty
| game - but I'd take that over marketing videos with clapping
| sounds any day.
| AhmadIbrahim wrote:
| This looks absolutely spectacular.
| rcconf wrote:
| Honestly the comments are a good example on how difficult it is
| to sell to developers and why startup ideas that target
| developers are dangerous to bootstrap.
|
| Developers have high incomes, but are quite frankly, extremely
| cheap. And I actually mean cheap and not frugal. They will spend
| 40 hours/week for months to save $5/mo. There's basically no
| logic apart from that developers have a poor concept of time and
| money and are spending averse (again, cheap.)
|
| In this case, this tool is $30/mo, or about $360 / year, what is
| that, 3 dinners for 2 people in a year? The tool may save the
| developer, let's say 3-4 hours / week and at 52 * 3 or about 156
| hours of savings a year. At even 30 an hour, it's saved the
| developer $4,680, or at 60/hour, close to $10,000, but I can
| guarantee that 99% of developers will not spend $30/month to make
| their lives easier.
|
| My only recommendation is try to sell this product to businesses
| and maybe offer them a deal based on the amount of developers
| they have. So sell it do a dev shop with 10 developers at
| $20/developer / per month. Businesses understand the time/money
| tradeoff and are not cheap.
|
| Developers, my only word of advice, is seriously.. stop being so
| cheap and spend some money to make your lives easier.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| No. Monthly subscriptions suck. Every company wants to "tax" me
| monthly for something that's feature complete. The ones I
| already pay, I do so very begrudgingly. There's simply too many
| SaaS products out there.
|
| Let's go back to perpetual licenses. And I'll gladly pay for
| upgraded versions, or not if the upgrade isn't worthwhile. When
| it's not SaaS, I also get to control what version I'm using.
| The product doesn't own me, I get to own the product.
| mhaberl wrote:
| > Let's go back to perpetual licenses.
|
| There is a perpetual licence listed on a page; Life-time $900
|
| > Monthly subscriptions suck.
|
| They do. But for a SaaS biz that has to pay the bills for
| infra it is hard to get around it.
| ggoo wrote:
| This is the most developer response I could've imagined. I
| love it.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| I don't disagree with what you saying, but ...
|
| People seem to forget what the cost of a perpetual license
| use to be.
|
| Licenses would easily equate to 3-years (36-months) _or more_
| , of what a monthly subscription would cost.
|
| Case in point:
|
| $439, you can buy a perpetual license of Microsoft Office
|
| $7/mo, you can get the same functionality + hosting + storage
| as a monthly subscription
|
| It'd take over _5-years_ to breakeven.
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-
| profe...
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/buy/compare-
| al...
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Subscription: access the hosted MS Word with a browser
| installed on a device.
|
| Perpetual: instal MS Word on the device.
|
| "hosting" may supports subscription tech needs but doesn't
| affect my experience asside from a new point of failure.
|
| Storage is nice but I already have my HDD, USB key, Google
| Drive and it's works great. I understand MS has interests
| to make me store my stuff in their cloud. I don't. Bonus
| point: you own your data in addition to the soft (not with
| g-drive of course)
| bombcar wrote:
| There has to be a _reason_ all these companies love SaaS vs
| yearly upgrades and I think it's because "subscriptions"
| get forgotten or ignored or "it's not worth worrying
| about".
| mhuffman wrote:
| Also, just the fact that it is easier to soak a person a
| little at at time ($7 per month) rather than hit them
| with a big price all at once ($495).
| kunalgupta wrote:
| it's because it's easier for the customer to decide to
| buy, i think obviously
| erickhill wrote:
| It also saves a ton of $ and resources supporting older
| versions.
| wpm wrote:
| Yup, I wouldn't mind subscriptions so much if it was a
| simple "one and done, keep it going if you want" deal.
| Ask me for $10 per month, not $10 _a_ month, with auto-
| renewal enabled, impossible to turn off or difficult to
| find the button due to a million toxic UI patterns trying
| to trick me into giving up, and 2 or 3 pathetic "pwease
| don't go!" prompts once I do.
|
| If I buy a month, and never renew, it means I'm done
| using it or I didn't find it valuable. Don't send me
| emails reminding me, don't notify me. I'll find out when
| I open the thing up again and see my sub is gone. If I
| want it back, I'll buy another month.
|
| The value in a sub for the end user is that I _don 't_
| have to sign my soul away for a program I'll use once or
| twice a year. But the common pattern tries to hide that
| away and fool me out of money. Frankly, it's offensive
| and gross, hence, fuck subscriptions.
| bombcar wrote:
| All subscriptions should be the way Apple's store handles
| them; you can subscribe to Disney+ today, immediately
| cancel, and have access for the remainder of your
| subscription time. Then you don't have to remember it,
| and if you DO find you want it when you go to access it
| after your subscription is over, you can easily
| resubscribe.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Usage based pricing?
|
| It sounds like you want usage based pricing where for
| example, you pay $X for each day you use the tool and
| then get billed at the end of the month accordingly.
|
| Similar in concept to how AWS bills for most of it's
| services.
| bombcar wrote:
| I took it as "let me pay for this month, and if I need it
| next month I'll pay then".
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Having predictable revenue is a huge reason.
|
| As opposed to super lumpy revenue due to bursts of
| revenue coming in after a new version release.
|
| There's also a lot of business risk because if you have a
| new version people don't like, they don't have to upgrade
| and now you don't get that burst of revenue your company
| needs to stay afloat.
|
| EDIT: also, perpetual licenses create the wrong
| incentives. We've all complained about software bloat
| before. With a perpetual license, you only get paid on
| upgrades ... creating a situation where the software
| vendor jams in more (unneeded) functionality in order to
| justify creating a new version release.
| bombcar wrote:
| The first can be solved with "pay over time" setups
| (which can be relatively easy to setup even if it's just
| internal accounting, or you can literally buy appropriate
| bonds on the open market).
|
| I suspect the second is a bigger driver; companies don't
| like people not choking down whatever idiotic change
| they've made in the latest version because it makes
| whichever exec pushed it look bad. With subscriptions you
| usually HAVE to keep updating.
| Y-bar wrote:
| It's less about the number on the end of the invoice, it is
| more about the personal control of my finances, and _even
| more_ about the ability to keep on using a version without
| risking an update breaking stuff because. Sometimes it's
| perfectly good to not upgrade. Why should I then pay for a
| version I may not like, a version which may break the
| workflow I set up and worked great in the previous major
| release?
| LeonB wrote:
| It might be a pedantic point but when you buy a perpetual
| license you don't "own" the product - you "own" a license to
| use the product, on the terms in the license.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| OP "own" the product in the sense "use it as long as he
| want in the terms defined in the license at the time it's
| bought." Adobe can't change the license of the Photoshop
| CS3 cd-rom I bought a while ago. If I'm using their current
| subscription version I would only use the license to use
| the product in the time defined by the subscription.
| sammyoos wrote:
| I'm guessing the reason this is brought up is because of
| the concern about if the license server goes down or the
| company goes out of business can I still use the product.
| berkle4455 wrote:
| I don't like subscriptions because they feel like this never
| ending ticket that as soon as I complete that task it
| immediately is recreated +30 days out. Buying items for a
| whole price allows me to close that task for good.
| LurkerAtTheGate wrote:
| Also, the additional task of tracking down all the monthly
| charges when my personal credit card number was compromised
| yet again and I need to update my payment details
| soneca wrote:
| They have perpetual licenses (with perpetual upgrades). If
| you pay the $900 you don't have any "tax" to pay.
|
| Doesn't that option completely remove your concerns with this
| product?
| jchw wrote:
| Nailed it.
|
| I happily pay a lot of money for nice things, but only if I
| get to own them. I am not cheap, I'm picky. I'm not picky by
| choice, I'm picky by experience. I already know I can't trust
| subscriptions.
|
| If you have to make your tool a one-time cost, you might come
| to realize it's not really worth the amount of money you
| could've made by selling it for $5/mo, and that's a great
| illustration of just one reason why developers don't like
| subscriptions.
| demarq wrote:
| Are you saying that you don't have subscriptions at all?
| Hamuko wrote:
| I don't think I have any software subscriptions. I used
| to have a Tweetbot subscription, which was fairly cheap
| and definitely useful, but I probably don't have to
| detail what happened to that.
|
| Otherwise I think the only subscription I have left at
| the moment is Humble Choice. And that's kind of a weird
| one since you don't need to keep the subscription active
| to keep the rewards, and you can in fact to choose
| whether or not to pay month-to-month.
| jchw wrote:
| I have not started a new software subscription in ages.
| The last software subscription I subscribed to is
| probably Jetbrains Toolbox, and I don't plan on getting
| any new software subscriptions for the foreseeable
| future; as far as I can recall, that's the only one I
| currently have. I have other subscriptions, but they're
| for services, where the point of the subscription is the
| constant flow of new things rather than access to
| something.
| soneca wrote:
| They have a one-time pay option. $900. So, if you love to
| pay for nice things as long as you can own them, they have
| an option for you.
| zapt02 wrote:
| Problem is this product is worth like $30 in total.
| warent wrote:
| I like how the original comment gave some thoughtful
| napkin estimates about how this product may be worth
| several thousand dollars as a function of time saved, and
| your counter argument is just "nah it's $30 total" with
| absolutely no reasoning or logic.
|
| Like it or not, this is the kind of response from an
| engineer that falls into the category of emotionally
| cheapo.
| jchw wrote:
| Exactly! And I do, in fact, I will pay much more than
| that for a one-time software payment, and I have.
| However:
|
| > If you have to make your tool a one-time cost, you
| might come to realize it's not really worth the amount of
| money you could've made by selling it for $5/mo, and
| that's a great illustration of just one reason why
| developers don't like subscriptions.
|
| At _$900_ , it's not so easy of a sell. edit: Especially
| because, do I own it?
|
| > License for 3 activations
|
| OK. What happens when the activation server goes down?
| For software I _really_ own, there is no concern here.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'd love to see software escrow for companies like this -
| something as simple as "if we stop making the software or
| go bankrupt or otherwise make it unable to be used, we
| have the source code and friends escrowed with a company
| that will then release it under the AGPL."
| kamarg wrote:
| I know of two companies that provide this. My experience
| is with software written for government entities by a
| third party. Every time we cut a new release, we would
| have to go through an escrow process to provide the
| services with a VM image that would allow our clients to
| build from source our entire software stack along with
| the ability to host the software either in house or in
| the cloud. It was a very expensive and time consuming
| processes and my ex-employer charged a fortune to any
| clients that wanted it.
|
| https://nationalsoftwareescrow.com/what-is-software-
| escrow/
|
| https://softwareresilience.nccgroup.com/software-escrow-
| serv...
| earthnail wrote:
| Unlikely that this will happen. Companies rarely go
| bankrupt, they often just float along. Even if it did
| release the source code, will you really go and make it
| compile? There's also a lot of credentials involved; for
| example for getting an app on the App Store, you not only
| need the source code but all the developer certificates.
| Releasing them would violate Apple's App Store T&C.
|
| It's just not that simple in practice. Then again, that's
| not unique to software: imagine being a car company and
| looking for suppliers. You're not gonna rely on some new
| unknown company for components that you need in your
| long-term planning. But if you do, you pay them so that
| they can survive.
|
| My main gripe with subs is that there's no central place
| to manage them and it's easy to forget how many you have.
| That is the one thing that Apple did well in the App
| Store.
| themerone wrote:
| I have expensive useless licenses from multiple defunct
| software vendors.
|
| It's said that 20% of small businesses fail in their
| first year, and 50% in the first five.
| bombcar wrote:
| Central management and ease of cancelling is a huge
| factor - App Store subscriptions are painless and I'll do
| them without a second thought, everything else is hell
| and I avoid them as much as I can.
| fragmede wrote:
| You're still proving rcconf's bigger point - don't sell
| tools to developers, because we suck to sell to. This
| leaves us with shitty free tools, or really expensive
| ones that tie us to our employers. Want to leave your
| job? I mean, sure, you can, but on top of needing to find
| a new job, you'll need to learn a completely different
| development environment. Which is just life, I suppose.
| not_a_shill wrote:
| You are cheap. You're still basing your decision on the
| cost of using the product instead of the value it provides
| you.
|
| This isn't targeting you specifically though, most comments
| in this thread are stereotypical developers too.
| jchw wrote:
| No, I am not basing my decision on the cost of using the
| product. I'm basing my decision on factors that have
| nothing to do with money.
|
| I think a perfect example of this for me is IDA Pro, for
| which I own a license. When Hex-Rays switched over to a
| subscription model, I did not renew. I still use the old
| version today, and it works perfectly fine for my needs.
|
| The difference between buying it on subscription and not
| is whether or not I own it. I really own this copy; it's
| mine whether or not I'm connected to the Internet, and it
| will work in perpetuity until the sun burns out. That's
| how exchanging money for software is supposed to work.
| erickhill wrote:
| That's how it _used_ to work, back when you could go to
| MicroCenter and pull a box off a shelf then take it home
| and hope to hell you had the right drivers installed.
|
| But it's also why when I run across a company that
| shockingly lets you buy their product outright I fully
| support their efforts and invest in a purchase. It really
| is cool to sometimes be off WiFi somewhere and use
| software to your heart's content.
| not_a_shill wrote:
| >you might come to realize it's not really worth the
| amount of money you could've made by selling it for
| $5/mo,
|
| I wouldn't have brought this up if you weren't trying to
| give the impression that money is a factor.
|
| I interpreted it as "I still wouldn't pay $120 because
| even though it returns more value than that, it isn't
| worth that."
|
| Edit: (that being said, the one time purchase cost of
| this for a "lifetime" license is $900, which seems more
| like a way to push subscriptions than a serious attempt
| at selling a one time purchase)
| jchw wrote:
| Yes, but the qualifier is important.
|
| >just one reason why developers don't like subscriptions.
|
| The truth is that I don't even _consider_ paying for new
| subscriptions anymore unless there 's a good reason for
| it to be a subscription. I don't want to have to "trust"
| someone. Will they exist in a year? Will the software get
| worse and leave me with no choice but to use the "new"
| version? The test here is that I genuinely don't think I
| would use software that asked for a $0.05/month
| subscription either. That's just not how I want to use
| software.
|
| If we want to talk about money, though, then there are
| still good reasons to _not_ buy a $5 /mo subscription. It
| sounds like it's a good enough deal, and in fact, I might
| even agree with you. But there is absolutely _nothing_
| that guarantees that this will stay the price forever in
| perpetuity. In fact, even a literal guarantee that
| enforces this would be worth toilet paper because if it
| ever came to a head, if the company went bankrupt, it
| would take down the activation servers and potentially
| leave you without your software.
|
| So playing it from the top, let's say you get a new-
| fangled productivity software. Everything's great and
| you're only paying $5/mo.
|
| - Then they release a "new" version. The new version
| breaks all of your workflows and you have to relearn
| everything. It's now awkward for the way you were using
| it.
|
| - Then they add new features that are only available on a
| new $20/mo subscription. Turns out $5/mo wasn't really
| sustainable after all, so they need to adjust the price.
| Slowly over time, pressure mounts on the grandfathered
| old accounts to do something that will push them up to a
| higher tier.
|
| - Then it all goes badly: Some venture capital and/or
| acquisitions later, and the software goes broke. Now
| what? Well, if you own it, nothing. If you don't, tough
| luck: All of your workflows are broken _again_ , and you
| have to go back to doing things the old way.
|
| For tools that are core to the stuff I work on, I do not
| play games like this. I do not care how sure you are that
| this won't be you. I don't want re-assurances, I want
| control over it.
| LapsangGuzzler wrote:
| Every developer understands how subscriptions work. A
| product may provide value today, but there's no guarantee
| that the payoff will be worth the cost in the long run as
| the company increases its prices.
|
| With a subscription, you're agreeing to let a company tax
| you to do your job in the hope that it pays off instead
| paying upfront one time for a product.
| not_a_shill wrote:
| >but there's no guarantee that the payoff will be worth
| the cost in the long run as the company increases its
| prices.
|
| You can cancel a subscription
| bombcar wrote:
| I've not seen the research but is suspect the average
| cancelled subscription goes far beyond "when it was no
| longer worthwhile" before it is cancelled.
|
| Which reminds me I have a few airline card to cancel.
| LapsangGuzzler wrote:
| Right, but what if your subscription tool that you want
| to cancel is pipelined into your workflow in such a way
| that you're paying a technical or operational cost to
| cancel beyond just severing the account itself, i.e.
| vendor lock-in?
|
| This is why it's often better as a solo dev to not rely
| on these tools in case you have to jettison them and
| break your workflow.
| warent wrote:
| Another way of wording what you just said: "What if
| cancelling the subscription is more costly than keeping
| it?"
|
| Uh... then keep it, because that means it's providing
| value to you.
| jchw wrote:
| It's a problem, though, to become reliant on something
| and then experience a rugpull. A lot of people seem to
| think that you pay for a product and then in exchange you
| get increased productivity, and the only "cost" is, well,
| the cost. But it's not. Once you start becoming reliant
| on something to do your job, you orient your workflow
| around it. There may be alternatives, but it costs your
| time and effort to switch. It differs per tool: imagine
| switching text editors though. That's a _very_ non-
| trivial endeavor for many software developers, even
| people who use fairly stock editors will have become
| pretty integrated into how their setup works, with
| hundreds of hours of muscle memory and re-orienting
| yourself to the "mental model" it has.
|
| That's exactly why people selling products love
| subscriptions so much. It's not JUST reliable income.
| It's sticky. If I own something for real, as in it works
| offline with no activation garbage needed, I can just not
| pay for the new version if I don't like it. Maybe the old
| one becomes obsolete eventually, so it's not risk-free,
| but nonetheless. But, if a subscription fee increases, my
| options are typically 1. Go to hell.
|
| Am I exaggerating? Well, yes and no. For one thing, I
| have really truly experienced the rugpull. It doesn't
| even have to be malicious, it can be as simple as
| "company disappears". The more established and
| trustworthy a company has proven to be, the more willing
| I am to put up with some loss of control. But monthly
| subscriptions to random products I see on HN? No thanks.
|
| I'm not even asking for a perpetual lifetime license,
| which I already find sketchy from a sustainability
| standpoint. I am fine with the old-school "upgrade
| license" concept employed by say, VMWare and friends, and
| the less DRM-heavy the solution is, the better.
| bgirard wrote:
| You have to recognize the incentive of developers working
| for a large company:
|
| I can either 1) pay for it out of my own pocket, 2)
| expense it monthly which after wasting time in expense
| reports basically goes back to 1 where I pay for it
| myself, or 3) go through the software procurement
| process. I've done all 3, and none of these really yield
| a personal benefit. 1+2 are annoying, and 3 takes time
| away from your main job and it's hard to get the
| licensing right. And at scale I think game theory does
| well at modeling behavior for why developers wouldn't
| want to go through any of these options.
|
| For a freelance developer I'll speculate that for a dev
| that bills hourly the benefit aren't great, but it's
| still value passed on to the customer so it might be
| worthwhile.
|
| If I ran my own freelance business and charged a flat fee
| I would 100% buy this tool if I did a lot of CSS work.
| mhuffman wrote:
| I mean, you are taking shit for this comment for some reason,
| but it is absolutely true! At some point I don't want to have
| to pay for dozens of apps every month. Just charge me what
| you need and let me have it. If it is broken when you sold it
| to me, great, I will update. If you come up with new clever
| additions, I may or may not want those. But subscriptions
| take that ability away from you. And I want a tool to use,
| not a relationship with you forever!
| V__ wrote:
| I understand the feeling of not wanting to pay continuously
| for something feature complete. But, as long as the monthly
| cost for those tools is less, than the hourly-rate it would
| take to do it yourself, does it really matter? You are still
| saving money/time.
| subhro wrote:
| It absolutely does. It almost looks like a MLM scheme with
| at least depth of 1. Let's say you earn $100/hr using my
| tool. If I as the author/seller of the tool claim $1/hr for
| tool usage (I understand it is much less than that, but
| just go with my statement) in the form of subscription, I
| continue to get the buck as long as you use the tool. As a
| developer, I am paying the tool author perpetually for the
| work "I" do. I believe I should have an option to say, NO.
| This is precisely what is stopped by perpetual license. I
| am not opposed to subscription, but I MUST have a way to
| pay it outright and call it a day.
| tamiral wrote:
| I always like the "lifetime" access when the price is
| reasonable and makes sense. Also, i assume if you message
| lots of SaaS startups they will create a payment for a
| year or something specific...I mean 99% of them use
| stripe its not complicated option. The more we ask, the
| more we have options.
| andrewxdiamond wrote:
| It's the feeling of being taxed for a transaction that is
| already completed.
| zapt02 wrote:
| Agreed. Value-wise this is a $30 product with one year of
| free upgrades, not $30/month.
| KomoD wrote:
| > Developers have high incomes, but are quite frankly,
| extremely cheap.
|
| We're not all making 100k+/yr, $30/mo is a significant amount.
| LapsangGuzzler wrote:
| > stop being so cheap and spend some money to make your lives
| easier.
|
| How many times have you been sold on the idea that X tool is
| gonna make life easier without any tradeoffs only to be
| disappointed? It's happened so many times to me, I've lost
| count.
|
| Developers understand the inherent complexity involved with
| adding dependencies because we are paid to understand and
| manage that complexity in our jobs.
|
| I pay for lots of software as an engineer, but I've lost count
| of the number of times that I've purchased a subscription that
| only did 80% of what I needed, which ultimately led me to churn
| as a customer.
| recursive wrote:
| > 360 / year, what is that, 3 dinners for 2 people in a year?
|
| Either that math is wrong, or we're eating different dinners.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| I don't think developers in general are cheap, it's that they
| are employed somewhere and therefore it doesn't benefit THEM to
| save time, it benefits their employer. It may even be
| detrimental to the developer as it put higher expectations on
| the developer to produce more if the suddenly perform better at
| a specific task..
| codemonkey-zeta wrote:
| It absolutely does benefit me to save time, because writing
| css by hand is one of the most soul-crushingly boring tasks
| imaginable. Sure my employer also benefits, but that's only
| if I use that saved time to write more code. Maybe I use the
| extra time to walk my dog.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I have a fixed number of working hours in a week regardless
| of my efficiency, so even if I manage to make myself
| efficient, I don't reap the benefits.
| lolinder wrote:
| Most tools like this are priced with the understanding that
| they'll be billed to the employer in the end, not paid out of
| pocket by the developer.
|
| They probably need to add org licenses soon in order to
| better accommodate that.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Yeah, but a lot of employers would still bristle at $180 a
| year (if you pay in advance) for a souped up version of dev
| tools. Not to mention that most places that would have a
| budget for something like this would need to do a security
| audit of anything like this.
|
| If you're a consultant or have a lot of client projects,
| you can absolutely bill the client for this sort of thing.
| But that's not the situation for everyone and certainly
| doesn't strike me as the audience being targeted by the
| landing page.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| My current employer gives all engineers $1000/year to
| spend on tooling. We just expense it and it's
| automatically approved, up to a grand. No arguments the
| budget, no manager approval required, nothing.
|
| Were way more efficient than any other place I've worked,
| all because we're empowered to buy little $10/month
| plugins that save boatloads of time.
| sroussey wrote:
| Back in the day, we had requested donations for Firebug
| (which had millions of installs) and the revenue was
| embarrassingly pathetic. We used it to give contributors
| in non-western countries some bonuses from time to time.
| zerocrates wrote:
| There you're taking the already high-ish barrier for devs
| to pay for tools, as discussed elsewhere in this thread,
| and adding on the _really_ high barrier to get people to
| donate to things they can use for free.
| sroussey wrote:
| True, but there was a high barrier to entry to just
| install it. And for a long time there was little else you
| could use.
|
| On the other hand, it was free and more important to get
| people to use it and be more productive then generate
| revenue.
| sharemywin wrote:
| I think your lumping developers all in the same category, but
| either way there's not much value in a subscription for a
| developer.
|
| If your a developer business owner(not hourly freelancer) than
| absolutely makes financial sense.
|
| If your an hourly freelancer your customers probably aren't
| going to offer you more money for your time.
|
| If you work for someone else they should pay for it.
|
| If you are fixed bid or some variation on that then probably
| makes sense because your time is money.
| globalise83 wrote:
| Maybe this should have a slightly different audience than
| developers, namely UX designers, technical product managers
| (semi-technical folks who know about html and css), etc. so
| that they can play around with their products, produce
| prototypes based on the actual product, share design
| specifications more easily etc.
|
| For example, I am a semi-technical product manager, meaning I
| know enough about coding to be able to make whatever simple UI
| changes I want, but leave actual development of the products to
| the professionals. I would use this tool and maybe recommend to
| my business paying for it if it genuinely saves some time over
| making the same changes in dev tools.
|
| For example, the ability to prototype a new UI feature "inside"
| my existing products, and then share the prototype with someone
| would be extremely valuable to me. Currently I use the "edit as
| html" tool in dev tools and then apply some styling to the new
| elements. Of course, if I hit refresh by mistake, I would lose
| my changes. Has happened before!
| speedgoose wrote:
| I understand your point but $30 more per month to have a web
| inspector that is slightly nicer in some way but also much more
| limited in many other ways is expensive. Monthly subscriptions
| adds up and not everyone has too much money.
| rcconf wrote:
| Let's say they sells it at $10 / mo. They would need 1,000
| customers to make a reasonable wage at $10,000 / month. If
| they sells it at $30/month, they would need only 300
| customers.
|
| Can you imagine how annoying it would be to deal with 1,000
| cheap customers that expect the world? Maybe they should sell
| it at $100/mo and sell it to only 100 people that really care
| about the problem.
|
| Maybe just sell it to a business for $200/mo for all
| developers, they would only need 50 businesses to make
| $10,000/month and they would also remove the annoying, cheap,
| high expectation developer out of the equation.
|
| Developers and engineers are probably the worst customer to
| have, insane expectations, complain about everything,
| criticize everything and use a magnifying glass to point out
| any issues, black/white thinking etc.
|
| My theory is writing code has all of these expectations in
| it. You need to be highly critical, black/white (or you would
| drift into a world of options.) have insane expectations (or
| your manager gets mad at you.) etc. All great qualities for
| writing code, but the worst qualities for a customer.
|
| I'm a developer too by the way, so please don't be offended,
| I've been there and done that, the other side is much nicer.
| For example, I activated my iCloud to 2TB at $10/mo instead
| of making a custom backup solution that I can run for $2/mo.
| Would I have done that years ago? Yes and the result would
| have been me spending 80 hours building the backup system
| that can't even get my photos back on my phone properly.
|
| What I'm trying to say is, it's sad to watch developers
| suffer for a small amount of money per month. I honestly
| believe it's a failure of the people who manage developers. I
| may be reaching here, but I think a lot of developers have
| been treated poorly in general from managers, projects and
| high expectations. They are rarely rewarded properly which is
| actual recognition for the work they do. It's not free
| massages, free lunches and cool workspaces. As a result, I
| believe developers are the givers and the companies and
| managers are the takers. The takers siphon the life out of
| developers and to the point where they're so risk averse they
| won't even spend $100 to go to a spa to relieve some stress.
| They're so risk averse they won't even spend $30/month to
| make their lives easier.
|
| What am I saying? Developers SPEND some money on yourselves.
| You DESERVE IT for the hard work you do. Stop being so risk
| averse just because the work you do is so.
|
| Rant over.
| samastur wrote:
| We do, just not on every tool and widget.
|
| I think you make a lot of insulting assumptions about other
| people. I'm sure there are many who are more frugal than me
| for their personal reasons, but it's not some personal
| failure not to be persuaded to rent a particular product.
| DANmode wrote:
| You'd be shocked at how many devs have spent big bucks on
| Apple hardware just to run Linux on it.
|
| We spend. Intelligently.
|
| If this was a $400/$600 (or even into the thousands of USD)
| lifetime license, they may see wider adoption.
| pfg_ wrote:
| It is. There is a $900 lifetime license available
| bakugo wrote:
| You're clearly trying really hard to market this mediocre
| overpriced product, so let me give you a tip: repeatedly
| insulting your target customer base while trying to sell
| them something might work for your average modern consumer,
| but it won't really work here on HN.
| rcconf wrote:
| I just want to be really clear, I have no idea who built
| this product and I am not associated with it in any way.
| [deleted]
| kwanbix wrote:
| The problem is not a single subscription. The problem is that
| today everything is a subscription. So you end up paying 600
| euros per month from 20 subscriptions of "just 30 euros" and if
| you don't pay attention, you can even pay more.
| last_responder wrote:
| >Developers, my only word of advice, is seriously.. stop being
| so cheap and spend some money to make your lives easier.
|
| >but I can guarantee that 99% of developers will not spend
| $30/month to make their lives easier.
|
| Your post is insulting and it really seems like it is an ad for
| this product.
| sb8244 wrote:
| It is insulting, but sometimes the shoe fits. Developer tools
| is notoriously difficult because engineers (and their
| managers, and the teams) _are_ very cheap.
| sroussey wrote:
| If a dev thinks they could build it themselves, they won't
| pay. You have to cross a line where the dev does not want
| to even entertain the idea of building it. So backends for
| front end engineers, for example.
| Sai_ wrote:
| Yeah, this makes sense to me.
|
| I'm sure if you asked a trained chef if they'd buy some
| overpriced gourmet food at a chic place, they'd say no.
| They're making exactly the same choice as a developer
| when it comes to visualising how much effort it takes to
| make a similar tool/food.
|
| Since developers know (broadly) how the sausage is made,
| it's going to be hard to get them to spring for basic
| sausage dressed well and slickly presented.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| It's not just about the price. It's also about how it's pitched
| and what the on ramp looks like.
|
| In this case, without a free trial, there is a much bigger gap
| to traverse to go from "not a customer" to "paying monthly".
|
| It's also harder if you are not the one paying the bills and
| need to pitch/sell such a tool internally.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| > They will spend 40 hours/week for months to save $5/mo.
| There's basically no logic apart from that developers have a
| poor concept of time and money and are spending averse (again,
| cheap.)
|
| To slightly counter. I am a developer with a high-ish (average
| for the industry, i suppose) income. I love paying for my
| tools. HOWEVER, i expect you'd call me cheap.
|
| Why? Well because i am very averse to subscriptions, and i
| think this is primarily due to being a developer and being
| around this culture. This culture which is flooded with
| startups all wanting X$ per seat, user, etc. I've seen these
| things scale excessively on loop. It's not 1 $5 sub. It's the
| 20 tools all vying for subscriptions, tiers of subscriptions,
| etc.
|
| I happily pay for things i can buy that improve my DX or
| productivity. However subs have to be exceptionally good to
| justify because they're in competition, in my head, with every
| other sub i already manage. Even if it doesn't make sense to
| have X and Y products "compete" because they're not even
| remotely related - they are in my head. They're in the list of
| subscriptions which i obsessively prune because this industry
| has left me feeling like i need to.
|
| I love "subs" like JetBrains though.
| chillbill wrote:
| I have no idea what you do (and what startup idea you tried
| before and got burned) but your generalization is not accurate.
| You can also say that developers are extremely particular about
| what they want to pay for. Developers spend hours to automate
| something that takes 5 minutes every week is because it's fun.
| Obviously my previous two statements don't apply to every
| developer, hence the generalization is wrong. Some are cheap,
| some are particular, and some are even more particular. Just
| like every other field I suppose, who would've thought!
| sammywater wrote:
| [dead]
| moneywoes wrote:
| Conversely, what personas have a higher marginal propensity to
| spend, IT folk? Sales?
| rusl1 wrote:
| It's incredible how American centric you are. 360 $ is a whole
| month of food for two people in Europe. Not joking.
| eagleinparadise wrote:
| You should talk to real estate, especially commercial real
| estate people. They are just as cheap, even though a commission
| could be $100k net or a new deal could yield $1M in profit in
| the next 5 years
| dubcanada wrote:
| While true, this comment is entirely US centric. $30 USD a
| month is not a joke to a good chunk of the world.
|
| Just because developers in US in San Fran make $350k a year
| doesn't mean everyone does. And it's incredibly short sighted
| to assume that.
|
| But ignoring all of that, your only recommendation is to sell
| it cheaper B2B... doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of
| keeping the $30 price?
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I have a theory that a lot of us became developers after being
| poor teenagers who downloaded warez for $0 in the olden days.
|
| For that reason, where software is concerned, for us the
| distance between $0 and $1 is even wider than the already wide
| distance it is for the general population.
| demarq wrote:
| 1000% agree. Don't sell to devs, always sell to their
| employers. I now see how keeping your price hidden could be
| beneficial. The person you're selling to isn't the person who
| should be interested in the price!
| nawgz wrote:
| Do I not know how to write CSS? Why is someone else's
| opinionated GUI generating CSS for me adding value?
|
| Devs aren't cheap, tools like this are useless. "Don't write
| code - use our GUI!" has been a winning proposition almost
| never.
| ozim wrote:
| Add to that most of the time GUI is just so much more work
| then writing code.
|
| I don't have to click around to change small thing I can jump
| to place in file and have it changed with 2-3 moves and GUI
| always is open some panel find another option open pop up
| etc.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| You act like 3 dinners for 2 people in a year is nothing.
|
| Some of us only eat out once a week because we have debts, or
| we have children, or we live in an expensive place. Some people
| eat out even less than that.
|
| Would I sacrifice ~6% of my meals out for this tool that (no
| disrespect to the developer, is a glorified color palette
| picker)? Definitely not, and it's not a matter of being
| "cheap."
|
| Not to mention, I think you're grossly overestimating how much
| time a tool like this would save. If I truly spend 200 hours a
| year picking colors, I likely would memorize a few by that
| point.
| halostatue wrote:
| I'm responding to this more because of the change to
| Kaleidoscope (MacOS diff tool) from one-time to subscription
| pricing.
|
| I have paid for Kaleidoscope at least four times and each time
| was more expensive (I think the total I spent was about US$300
| --probably closer to CA$450). I justified it because it was the
| best-in-class Mac-assed Mac app for its purpose and it really
| did and does save me time or frustration.
|
| I'd have happily paid another US$150 (~CA$200 today) for an
| upgrade to Kaleidoscope 4. I'm just not sure that I want to pay
| a variable amount per month amounting to US$96 (~CA$115)
| annually, because I already have subscriptions that I'm paying
| for which I don't use _enough_ (WebSequenceDiagrams is a good
| example; I happily pay, because when I need it I _really_ need
| it and there's nothing quite as good IMO).
|
| I know it's hard, but subscriptions are the _wrong_ choice most
| of the time, unless you can review and manage them in one place
| like you can with the Apple App Store. Because otherwise, you
| have to trust the company to not only (a) keep the subscription
| price fair without surprise increases but also (b) not use
| Adobe-level or NYT-level dark patterns for cancellation.
|
| I'm not cheap, but I am far more price sensitive to
| subscriptions than I am to one-off purchases. The bar for
| getting me to subscribe rather than buy is ten to twenty times
| higher, and most subscription software isn't that much better.
| donmcronald wrote:
| Subscriptions have _ruined_ software development by introducing
| a ton of external SaaS dependencies.
|
| For example, I have Java projects that are old enough to use
| the pre-subscription versions of IntelliJ IDEA. I can still
| install (ex:) IDEA v8, check out the project, and work on it
| immediately. That took some work because the Gradle wrapper
| needs to pull Gradle from a local server, I made a build task
| to pull in a project JDK, all the dependency artifacts need to
| be available locally, etc..
|
| When I set that stuff up, I thought development environments
| would evolve to do that kind of thing automatically. For
| example, using a modern analogy, I run 'docker compose run dev'
| and get a project specific development environment that's from
| an exact point in time, even if it's 10+ years old.
|
| Instead, we got subscriptions where I need to deal with a ton
| of continually changing SaaS dependencies that could disappear
| tomorrow. If you let a project idle for a year there's a decent
| chance it won't work when you go back to it.
|
| I also disagree with the mentality that costs (to me) should be
| judged by how much value I get while being completely divorced
| from the costs (to them) of operating. By that logic, you
| should sign your _entire_ paycheck over to the grocery store,
| right?
|
| I don't have a problem with ongoing costs if they're providing
| value to me, but I'm not willing to pay forever, even when I'm
| idle, for someone else to control part of my workflow. The loss
| of control alone is a bad deal.
|
| The introduction of the iPhone in 2008 is about the time I
| think things started changing. We went from developers that
| were concerned about maintaining control of their workflows,
| build systems, distribution, etc. to a new group of developers
| that are happy to become dependent on rent seeking SaaS
| middlemen while telling everyone else they're getting good
| value.
|
| Even Jetbrains is turning their products into something you
| can't rely on via Jetbrains Space. If a critical mass of
| developers buy into that, I'd be willing to bet the standalone
| editors get dropped at some point.
| kodah wrote:
| I'd like to point out that developers are likely exposed to
| more subscription costs than most average people. This or that
| tool is $5/m, hosting is $80 (or you run your own server, of
| which the electricity usage is constant), GitHub is $5-$15/m,
| Jet brains is close to $20.
|
| Calling us cheap I think overlooks the enormity of tools and
| businesses that chose this model and calculated that _they 're
| the only ones doing it._ Subscription costs are charged whether
| you use the tool or not, and if you stop subscribing you lose
| any previous versions you've paid for. It's a uniquely grimey
| model.
| sy7ar wrote:
| Unless all your work involves CSS I doubt it saves 3-4 hours /
| week. Also, saving 3 hours of work doesn't mean you get paid
| for 3 hours more. It's also a dependency that's not guaranteed
| to exist as long as the default browser dev tools or available
| on every machine.
| methodical wrote:
| Couldn't agree with this more. It's always nice to think that
| some super clean UI beats making quick CSS adjustments
| alongside HMR or a quick build time but in my experience it
| probably never does. If I wanted to test different font
| weights of some text I wouldn't go into the CSS in my browser
| and adjust it, I'd just change the value in my CSS (helped
| more-so by CSS frameworks such as Tailwind), and see how the
| output changed. The upside being that if I like how it looks,
| I've already made the change to my code. I don't know who
| this would realistically save any significant amount of time
| a week for outside of an inexperienced developer who doesn't
| have a pretty good idea of how slight style differences will
| impact the final product.
| tilakraj_0308 wrote:
| Hello everyone(edited)
| mnsc wrote:
| If all you do is css I doubt you have a workflow where this
| tool would save you 3-4 hours a week. It might even be ~20
| minutes/week and 10 minutes/week stumbling while relearning
| your habits to use (depend on) this tool. And then a year
| later when you are completely dependent on this tool. Boom.
| It's now acquired by and part of Atom Text Editor Enterprise
| Ide where all those who invested too much in Atom went to
| die.
| douglaswlance wrote:
| Developers in general aren't cheap.
|
| Developers who spend their time commenting about how something
| is too expensives are cheap.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Developers, my only word of advice, is seriously.. stop being
| so cheap and spend some money to make your lives easier.
|
| 30 USD here, 30 USD there, soon enough your bills go in the
| hundreds or thousands of dollars.
| patrec wrote:
| So you mean if after 30 or so such subscriptions you only
| increase your productivity by 0.1% you still come out ahead?
| interactivecode wrote:
| 9 other subscriptions and I only have to work 0 hours a
| week
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Spending money is one thing. I don't think most devs are
| opposed to doing that, especially for things that are central
| to your work. But I'm hard-pressed to see how a browser
| extension that will improve but not demonstrable change how
| browser dev tools work is worth $30 a month. This reminds me of
| Mighty, the $30 a month web browser that promised to be a lot
| faster and better (it ran off of cloud servers), but was
| absolutely not worth $30 a month (and I tried it and gave it an
| honest shot and it wasn't). Mighty failed and now I think is
| trying to pivot to some sort of AI generative art thing.
|
| Pricing too high will kill your business the same way pricing
| too low will. It has nothing to do with people being cheap, it
| has to do with value proposition, especially relative to other
| tools.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > In this case, this tool is $30/mo, or about $360 / year, what
| is that, 3 dinners for 2 people in a year? The tool may save
| the developer, let's say 3-4 hours / week and at 52 * 3 or
| about 156 hours of savings a year.
|
| I think you're being unnecessarily harsh.
|
| I can afford lots of things; I don't run out and buy them
| though.
|
| So this tool might save you maybe 4 hours a week (I cannot
| really see it saving 4 hours a week, but lets go with your
| numbers here).
|
| That is not "4 extra hours I get to spend sleeping". It is not
| "4 extra hours I get to spend with my kids". It is not "4 extra
| hours I use on my hobbies". It's "4 extra hours that my
| employee gets from me".
|
| > At even 30 an hour, it's saved the developer $4,680, or at
| 60/hour, close to $10,000,
|
| Nonsense. It's saved the _company_ $10k. It 's saved the
| developer exactly $0.
|
| > My only recommendation is try to sell this product to
| businesses
|
| I agree. Businesses get the savings from any tool they purchase
| for employee use, not employees, so they are more willing to
| shell out for productivity tools.
|
| > Developers, my only word of advice, is seriously.. stop being
| so cheap and spend some money to make your lives easier.
|
| Well, it seems to be working for them, isn't it? And you're
| being awfully judgemental about what other people find value
| in.
|
| This tool, which you say will save 4 hours a week, costs $30/m.
| ChatGPT 3.5 saves me much more than 4 hours a week, and costs
| $0/m. Copilot costs $10/m, and saves me more than 4 hours per
| week.
|
| Git (and things like gitea, etc) provide orders of magnitude
| more value than this, and you can find someone to provide a
| hosting plan for it for less than $10/m.
|
| It's all about value delivered, which you seem to be missing.
| It's a purely rational and economic decision.
|
| I _can_ afford office 365, but I find myself getting by without
| that subscription. If I purchased _every single devtool
| subscription_ , the monthly cost would exceed about half my
| salary, and all the benefits go to my employer.
| theonething wrote:
| If you're using a paid service for work, the company should
| pay for it.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| "Should" and "does" are widely different.
|
| They certainly _should_ but it takes time to get a new tool
| approved and the hassle is rarely worth it.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| On the other hand there are thousands of things that will make
| my life easier and you're right I will not spend 30,000 dollars
| a month to make my life easier.
|
| At any rate I'm not sure if I think this thing would actually
| make my life easier. Arguments:
|
| 1. For all the whining CSS is actually one of the easiest parts
| of the stack, when there is a CSS bug it is generally something
| like - a thing is slightly off position on this screen size or
| the color is a bit wrong not it is possible to access another
| customer's account if you know what day they signed up and
| their email (not real bug that I've ever encountered)
|
| 2. I'm relatively good at CSS so probably this will produce
| worse CSS than I would do myself - although nowadays the
| libraries that are most popular tend to hide the 'complexity'
| of CSS in a JavaScript layer that produces the actual crap CSS
| for you so whatever.
|
| 3. I have to click and point on things etc. I hate that. That
| makes things slower for me. I write text in files. quick.
|
| This is actually probably not for a developer - but for a
| designer who can have a design view of what the developer did
| and tweak a few things with this tool, hopefully make a PR and
| so forth.
|
| Yes it should be bought by a company because then - tax
| deductible and designer is using with developer so on team.
| [deleted]
| dhosek wrote:
| It's long been this way, even in the days when we had to (gasp)
| spend _money_ for compilers. I remember feeling like the
| typical user on Usenet back in the day would rather smelt sand
| to make a microchip than spend money on computer stuff.
|
| It's also why I spend my own money on subscriptions to IntelliJ
| and CLion. I spend a lot of time in those tools and it's worth
| it to me to pay to see them advance. Likewise, I just signed up
| to pay for Mimestream email because that's something else that
| I always use.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > The tool may save the developer, let's say 3-4 hours / week
|
| Seriously? Half a day a week?? As a professional FE dev there
| is no way this would save me 4hrs a week, every week. The
| existing dev tools are familiar, and while not perfect, get the
| job done. This tool is sugar on top of that, I can't see how it
| would save me so much time.
|
| I think regular folk, and non front-end engineers could find it
| easier and more approachable than dev tools, but I can see why
| target audience engineers won't put up $30/m for it.
|
| Edit: If this tool could demonstrably show a 3-4hr a week time
| saving go and show it to managers, they'll snap it up. Fact is
| corps are _cheaper_ than ICs at the coal face. This is if you
| class "cheap" as being extremely efficient with your
| resources.
|
| Just because engineers are well paid doesn't mean they should
| stop being efficient with their income. I'd rather spend $30 a
| month on lunch than on another magic tool.
| ESTheComposer wrote:
| $360 is only 3 dinners for 2 people?
| rafark wrote:
| Agreed. $120 per dinner?
| [deleted]
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Developers are cheap and the loudest are the most privileged
| living in SV earning insane wages can be true at the same
| time
| Aperocky wrote:
| I'd be very surprised there's any developer that spends more
| than 4 hrs per week to tweak CSS to begin with, I just don't
| see the savings that you outlined.
|
| I also think that you might be misunderstanding developers,
| we'll pay for lots of things to save time, but not when we
| either don't need it or can do it ourselves. I wrote my own
| cron jobs that saved countless hours - I don't need to buy
| that.
| sgallant wrote:
| After seeing the demo, I was really stoked about this product
| and was ready to buy but then I was turned off from the
| recurring monthly price.
|
| FWIW, if it were a 1-time price I would have paid probably $50
| - $99 for that.
|
| Here's a good interview with Adam Wathan from Tailwind about
| lifetime pricing:
|
| https://hackersincorporated.com/episodes/lifetime-pricing-is...
|
| Congrats on making it to the homepage of HN!
| marcosdumay wrote:
| People don't like subscriptions. And for entirely rational
| reasons, even if they can't articulate them. If you insist on
| selling subscriptions for people, they will treat it as
| predatory pricing (because for them it is) and will antagonize
| you.
|
| Companies, on the other hand, just love subscriptions. Also for
| entirely rational reasons.
|
| Now, if you insist on ignoring that fundamental difference,
| it's a "you" problem, not with your public.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| People keep saying there are rational reasons, but I haven't
| seen a single response here that doesn't boil down to
| "feels".
|
| They have a perpetual license option, not hidden. I think
| maybe people have so much feels that they are just
| bandwagoning here rather than using their noggins and
| evaluating the value of the product. Disappointing.
|
| Wanting to pay $900 for a product that might stop existing or
| be outcompeted in a year is not rational.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| There are a bunch of good responses here.
|
| 1. You don't own the software. Company decides to turn off
| the license server you're SOL.
|
| 2. Managing subscriptions is hard. So hard that multiple
| companies have popped up that purport to save you money by
| finding subscriptions you forgot about. I can think of a
| few that I have that I forget about until I see the invoice
| every month (and then forget it again).
|
| 3. Canceling subscriptions can be hard but it's impossible
| to know until you try. Some companies let you sign up with
| 2 clicks but make you call a phone number (that's only open
| odd hours) to cancel, and other well-known dark patterns.
| Aversion to that is aversion to subscriptions.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There were plenty of reasons on the threads here if you
| look for it. Just because somebody is mostly talking about
| emotions doesn't mean the argument are not rational.
|
| Anyway, people have different risk profiles than companies.
| Interest-rate based present day adjustments are
| meaningless, because they don't have the same opportunities
| on monetary markets; existential risks are well, really
| existential, instead of what they are for companies; power
| relations are extremely important, because people don't get
| any power; and so on.
|
| Again, if you insist on fixing it, it's a "you" problem
| that will lead to well deserve failures.
| lowercased wrote:
| I have opened myself up for more subscription services over the
| last couple of years. I freelance. My income is generally
| 'high', but irregular. Monthly subscriptions aren't irregular.
|
| Having a need for a tool for 2 months on a project, then...
| maybe needing it 4 months from now means I have to keep
| subscribing to the service even when I don't use it. I've kept
| things around at $30/month for months longer than I needed to
| because there wasn't a good way to export the data, then
| reimport it later if I needed it again in that tool. Taking
| time to determine the impact of stopping a subscription isn't
| always simple.
|
| I'm paying for 2 services that do something similar. Tried the
| second one that said "oh, we can import your data from the
| other service!". It can't, but I didn't try soon enough, and
| now I have setups in two services. My own fault for not trying
| soon enough, but taking time to manually move from svc 1 to 2
| (or 2 to 1) will take a lot more than than any 'savings' I
| might get from these.
|
| I've paid for jetbrains for years, and I pay for some
| hosting/cloud services (linode, DO, AWS, etc). I've paid for
| copilot. I've paid for some other IDE helper/services. I've got
| clients who pay for dropbox/similar.
|
| Average of $25/month, but times... say 8 on average (monthly or
| yearly external services I use)... That's not _nothing_ to me.
| I can live with it, but half of these I 'm not using regularly,
| but am somewhat held hostage because cancelling the service
| will lose my data which I may want to use on another project in
| the near future. So.. I keep holding on to things I'm not using
| in the hopes that I'll "save 2 hours/week!" 4 months from now.
|
| Some of these services don't play nicely with sharing - many
| bootstrapped services don't give me ways to share my account
| with someone else, or transfer my data to a client, for
| example. (some do, but not all). Even if I want that feature,
| and I'm a paying customer, if I'm in the minority, I won't get
| that feature.
|
| I understand your sentiment about "stop being cheap" but...
| even once I got past that, and got comfortable paying for more
| services, it's not always a good ROI (short term, usually yes,
| long term... no).
|
| "to make your lives easier". My life would be easier if I could
| use the service for a time, export all my data, cancel, then
| resume service by bringing my data in again later. OR... let me
| 'pause' monthly rebilling for a few months. An account 'freeze'
| feature - suspend service and billing for X months, Y times per
| year - would let me feel I'm getting more value when I need it.
| Yes, it would disrupt projected cash flow, but it would "make
| my life easier".
|
| My gym lets me do this. I can 'freeze' my membership for up to
| 4 months at a time per calendar year. I've done it when I know
| I'm going to be out of town for a few weeks - no way I'm going
| to use for the next 6 weeks. I'll freeze for the next month,
| then resume.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| Or perhaps I don't want to get fleeced and/or locked in to a
| model where if I stop paying, I lose access to an _offline
| program that costs the app developer NOTHING extra for my use_
| interactivecode wrote:
| the way you calculate savings is not really true in reality.
| even if I can now do my work 4 hours a week faster. I'm not
| immediately getting a pay bump, my boss just gives me 4hours of
| extra work.
|
| It won't give me 4 hours a week back, because my boss still
| reserves my time for those 4 hours.
|
| My household won't have an extra 30 euro a month to spend on
| those dinners. actually it will directly have 30 euro less to
| spend on dinners. so yeah all those considerations make me
| cautious paying for more subscriptions.
| woodpanel wrote:
| > Developers have high incomes, but are quite frankly,
| extremely cheap. And I actually mean cheap and not frugal. They
| will spend 40 hours/week for months to save $5/mo
|
| Personal anecdote:
|
| Long time ago when still working in a physical office building,
| the co-workers and me would each amass significant amounts of
| empty returnable bottles by the end of each week on one's desk.
| This irked me because it looked rather unprofessional, cost
| desk- or foot space and came with recurrent noise of someone
| knocking over the whole assortment.
|
| I then bought me a potato sack to just place my bottles in it
| in order to give the place a more hipsteresque feel and to give
| me more dignity carrying those bottles away.
|
| So what do you think my high income comrades did? Yes, they did
| buy potato sacks as well... after studying customer reviews for
| multiple potato sacks on Amazon for a week (Goes without saying
| that they bought them all regardless of the week-long study
| effort to try them out and send the "non-performant" ones back
| to get refunded).
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| * This tool may increase my time spent rather than save time. I
| need to spend time to find out. So I don't buy every one of the
| million tools because I am too cheap. I don't have time to
| evaluate all of them.
|
| * I have no way of cashing in saved time anyway
|
| * Developers can affect spending decisions at work worth $1000s
| to one SaaS at the expense of another or in addition. If we can
| save a hire through $50k/y in SaaS bills we will.
| roblh wrote:
| It's actually incredible how cheap we are. I catch myself doing
| it, and what makes it even more ridiculous is how much I won't
| even think twice about spending on other things that are just
| hobbies. Why does my brain think it's fine to spend hundreds of
| dollars on a microphone or a lens or even a plugin that is
| actually also software, but $50 for a tool that will help me
| with my 40 hour a week job is out of the question.
|
| A bit more on topic though, I don't really see this as a tool
| aimed at developers. Watching the demo on the site, this isn't
| really how I interact with css at all. I don't need a color
| wheel or draggable sliders with ultra fine resolution. The real
| utility, for me, of a tool like this, would be if you could set
| up essentially an internal style guide that would limit the
| possible options for all of the values to retain consistency.
| Then it would be great for finishing touches, sitting beside a
| designer or something.
| OJFord wrote:
| If it's helping the job then we ought to (be able to) expense
| it, there's a much higher bar for getting me to pay
| personally to help my work - as in it can't just be 'do it
| faster' (at the end of the day, do/should I care?) it would
| need to be posture/eye strain improving _and_ not offered by
| employer, or something like that.
|
| Imagine an embedded engineer personally buying a higher
| bandwidth 'scope (or whatever) to better debug an issue or QA
| before release. I don't doubt it _happens_ , but I think it's
| more clearly unreasonable, and I don't think theres any
| reason it makes more sense with software.
|
| Especially since software might well have per-device
| licencing, so you put it on your work machine and then what?
|
| ('I have better kit at home, I'm taking the DUT home for the
| weekend' is still overworking, but probably a lot more
| common, and I don't think quite the same/as bad as personal
| spend motivated by work.)
|
| Regarding 'developers are cheap' directly, in my (limited,
| but spanning large & very small/growing company) experience
| _businesses_ are cheap: they multiply the per-seat cost by
| head count and run scared, overlooking completely that it 's
| a rounding error on payroll, or that it's more than covered
| by the unpaid salaries of open positions that might've been
| filled. (Obviously there are boring reasons this can be that
| you don't need to reply to me about. So too are there myriad
| reasons not to buy something personally beyond being
| 'cheap'.)
| JackFr wrote:
| Well for me this would be a hobby purchase. The problem is
| that while I could justify dropping $150 on something like
| this to myself, I don't want to pay for it by the month,
| knowing that most months I won't use it.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > just hobbies
|
| Hobbies are hugely important to a healthy life.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| I think it's the monthly subscription for a offline product is
| what makes the devs to loose their interest, and I get it.
|
| I don't own the product when subscribing, I am only leasing it
| for as long as I pay. I don't like that, I prefer to own my
| products.
|
| Everything is slowly turning into a subscription, sure this is
| only 30$ a month, but if all my products were subscription
| based, I would go bankrupt.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| > stop being so cheap and spend some money to make your lives
| easier
|
| if I wanted to make my life easier I'd stop using emacs and
| arch linux
|
| and no I won't
| icholy wrote:
| This reminds me of skybound stylizer http://www.skybound.ca/
| efields wrote:
| This is very cool. The gradient/bkg generator alone is very cool.
| But I think you're trying to sell a design tool to developers,
| even highly proficient CSS developers, who have their _ways_.
| This is not a $30/month tool to those folks. This is a neat app
| to generate little parts of a website. Does not look like a daily
| driver, unless you're cranking out a lot of unique CSS monthly.
| jjdeveloper wrote:
| I think I'll just stick with Dreamweaver for now
| leemcd56 wrote:
| Nice tool, but I don't want to pay a subscription to use it. I
| appreciate the Lifetime license, but it's far too expensive. I'll
| pass. I wish you the best on this, though!
| bradreaves2 wrote:
| I think if I did webdev full time, the price would be easily
| justified.
|
| OP: Consider hobbyists and generalist who aren't full time. There
| might be a market segment for short term access for hobbyists or
| generalists.
|
| I would be easily willing to pay $2/day to have this while
| redoing my personal website, but $30 seems steep for a short term
| use. Doing a daily price could work to bring in users by serving
| as a low-cost demo.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| As someone with very little front end experience, mostly
| chugging through with chatgpt since blogspam is impossible to
| parse through, $30 bucks to make my site look good over the
| course of a month is a bargain if I just pay for the months I
| need.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| Does this stop working if you stop subscribing, or do you just
| lose access to updates? This needs to be made very clear.
| csmattryder wrote:
| > The extension will only work while your subscription is valid
| and not expired.
|
| At the bottom of the pricing page. It's not a JetBrains type
| deal.
| deserialized wrote:
| Very cool, but out of my price range unfortunately
| tuckerconnelly wrote:
| I'd say I'm the target market, and I don't have a hangup about
| subscriptions like other comments. I'm almost excited about this,
| but man, this feels painfully slow. Not like Salesforce slow. But
| death-by-a-thousand-cuts-everything-takes-500ms slow. "Retool"
| slow :)
|
| If you could cut some of the animations, or use transforms
| instead of absolute positioning or something--whatever to improve
| performance--I'd be down to try it for a month.
| junon wrote:
| 900! For lifetime use! I remember when Photoshop wasn't even that
| much.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| to be fair this is for lifetime upgrades
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Today, Photoshop alone with updates is 21$/month.
| CharlesW wrote:
| So, it costs ~3.5 years of Photoshop.
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