[HN Gopher] GoatCounter creator is hoping to raise at least EUR1...
___________________________________________________________________
GoatCounter creator is hoping to raise at least EUR1k for basic
living expense
Author : genzer
Score : 183 points
Date : 2024-01-13 10:25 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| reacharavindh wrote:
| I made a one time contribution. I hope there are other folks who
| benefit from such self hosted software that will give him a
| financial hand.
| moepstar wrote:
| Same - i dunno if i ever have a use for the project/software,
| but when he wrote that he doesn't want to "Jimmy Wales" people
| i just had to :D
|
| Also: sometimes, life is just brutal - admitting you _actually_
| do need help (and even moreso in such a public way) itself has
| to be rewarded and commended!
| ilaksh wrote:
| I have a different take. I think it's a warning to people
| that use the software: they can either chip in a little bit,
| or have no expectation whatsoever for there ever to be
| another release. I think that there is an ethical obligation
| here on the part of active users to donate at least $2 each,
| assuming that the developer isn't making up a story.
| smabie wrote:
| There's no ethical obligation to help someone who decided
| to upload code you can use to the internet.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Now that's brutal. Of course there isn't and you are
| quite right but there are such things as morals.
| dimask wrote:
| If one needs the code to be maintained, not supporting
| may mean that the code may stop being maintained, which
| may mean that one will stop being able to use it in the
| future.
|
| This may or may not be related to ethics, depending on
| what one calls or defines as ethics, but the reality is
| that free rides always carry a risk, even if there is no
| ethical obligation to pay for the ride. Of course, that
| depends on what value one gives to the code, and stuff
| like the cost of not being able to use it in the future
| due to lack of maintenance, or the cost of having to put
| in effort to maintain it oneself. But while there are no
| such ethical obligations tied to the use of some free
| software per se, imo there are ethics (or "ethics") tied
| to the interdepedencies and connections within such a
| social system in the sense of it being sustainable and
| able to self-perpetuate.
| sneak wrote:
| Free software is a gift. It does not create an obligation
| when one receives it.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| Life is a gift that also comes with no obligations. Pity
| everyone takes it so seriously.
| osmsucks wrote:
| Free software is generally considered "free as in free
| speech". Doesn't always imply gratis, as people still
| need to pay their bills.
| sneak wrote:
| It's both, as a point of law. If it's free as in speech,
| it is also necessarily free as in beer. That's what the
| freedom to redistribute means.
| Temporary_31337 wrote:
| You should read about psychology of gifts and how it
| helped the white man to conquer America. Native Americans
| were such honourable people that they felt every gift
| must be repaid and more.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > ...assuming that the developer isn't making up a story.
|
| Even if the developer is a millionaire, it's proper to chip
| in a few bucks for free stuff that you use and enjoy. Sob
| story or no sob story.
|
| But honestly, the real solution is for people to stop with
| this open source nonsense and start charging for their
| work. There are thousands of potential customers for every
| boutique app or code solution.
|
| Nobody is entitled to free code, especially not the billion
| dollar companies who are the main beneficiaries of the hard
| work of open source programmers.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Here's a one time donation. The project looks interesting, I'll
| give it a spin next time I need something like that. If it's
| embeddable as a library that's even better!
| MrEd wrote:
| > also turns out that CV with mainly software development is not
| all that useful for lot of things outside software dev :-/
|
| No shit sherlock!
|
| > I really hate to Jimmy Wales people about this and it's rather
| embarrassing.
|
| But the Jimmy Wales ref made me laugh so much i've just sent xx
| quid.
| rckt wrote:
| I was sponsoring this guy on github for some time. Then I wasn't
| seeing any updates, for like a year or so and stopped
| sponsorship. Now using umami for analytics.
| Gentil wrote:
| When I first added analytics to my website, I couldn't afford to
| pay for his then plan (There was a plan for opt-in pay for
| personal use and paid plan for commercial use. Or something of
| that sort IIRC). But when I move to a new gig, I wanted to pay
| for GoatCounter monthly plan but he stopped it in favour of
| github sponsors for some reason.
|
| I highly recommend and wish he moved back to the old pricing
| where he was allowing people to use it for personal use but was
| charging for commercial use. And it was super flexible since if
| you couldn't afford it, he mentioned you can email. Many more
| would pay for sure.
| lettergram wrote:
| My guess is he change it because most of the people who could
| almost use the product were commercial users. In addition, none
| would pay for commercial use as they'd just use google
| analytics, etc for free. In turn, he probably didn't have many,
| if any, paying users at that time
| nperez wrote:
| Reminds me a lot of the boat I'm in - based on his CV it looks
| like he's self-taught and started around the same time I did.
| This market right now is killing us, and I've got to wonder if AI
| tools are filtering out self-taught devs more aggressively than
| they used to. In the worst case scenario, I have family I can
| move in with, but I don't know how to function in any other role
| after dedicating myself to this since childhood. Just going to
| keep refining skills and hope things turn around soon.
| mrweasel wrote:
| > I've got to wonder if AI tools are filtering out self-taught
| devs more aggressively than they used to.
|
| I hope not. I have a CS degree, but some of the best and most
| prolific developers I've had the pleasure to work with have all
| be self-taught. One of the most talented .Net developers I've
| ever worked with had a masters degree in philosophy and was a
| trained furniture maker, when those things failed to pay the
| bills he taught himself C# and was easily the most talented and
| creative developer on our team.
|
| Selecting developers based on education is moronic, the self-
| taught people are often really talented and I can easily find
| CS majors who can't program at all. Education has almost zero
| reflection on your ability as a developer.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Agree with the general idea if your post but...
|
| > Education has almost zero reflection on your ability as a
| developer.
|
| Can we stop using the word "education" as a propaganda word
| like this?
|
| When people use the word like this, what they really mean is
| "institutionalized education and/or indoctrination."
| diggan wrote:
| Isn't that the colloquial meaning of the word "education"
| already?
|
| In what cases do people use the word "education" to mean
| something else than "institutionalized education"?
|
| I feel like it's pretty clear what they mean by that,
| without having to make it into a political statement of
| "institutionalized indoctrination".
| glimshe wrote:
| This is not true. There is a fairly strong correlation
| between formal education and ability as a developer, and I
| say this as someone with close to 2 decades of experience in
| the problem space. A CS/STEM degree, as degree quality (where
| the degree was obtained), makes an enormous difference in the
| average case.
|
| People who say the opposite are thinking of developers, often
| themselves, who were able to become skilled without a CS
| degree. That is indeed quite possible, and I've met many
| individuals in this category. I'm not going to say the best
| developers I've met had no degree, but I've met great
| developers without a degree. But I wouldn't say it is
| _common_ ; most developers without a CS/STEM degree whom I've
| met were, indeed, mediocre engineers that often had no
| business being there.
|
| I've also met many poor developers from great schools and
| great developers from schools with poor reputation. But, as a
| thought experiment, if I was to pick a developer based solely
| on whether they have a degree and where they got this degree,
| lacking any other piece of information, I'd always pick the
| ones with a degree from a reputable school.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| They said "some of the best and most prolific developers".
| The average case is meaningless. Self-taught developers who
| thrive are almost certainly above average.
|
| If you discriminate based on having a CS degree, you are
| lopping off a big portion of the right tail which is where
| all the people you actually want to hire are.
| wongarsu wrote:
| In my experience the best developers are self-taught
| programmers who then went on to get a CS degree. Probably
| followed by people who got a STEM degree and then went on
| to become self-taught programmers (with a jump-start from
| the little programming they learned in their STEM degree).
| Getting good with only a CS degree or only self-learning is
| much tougher, though of course there are examples of both.
| sgu999 wrote:
| I've come across so many devs with "good" CVs who were full of
| themselves and couldn't do a single pragmatic thing. CVs,
| degrees, titles seem completely inflated and mostly meaningless
| in North America and in tech in particular. Sometimes I'm
| wondering whether people like you - assuming you are good at
| your job - shouldn't simply lie on their CV to get their foot
| in the door.
|
| Regardless, you should have better chances of not being
| filtered out with small, profitable, companies.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| A billion of these stories never prepared me for the utter
| shitshow that laid itself bare to me when I first became a
| hiring manager. I'm self-taught, am strongly philosophically
| opposed to educational or past employer 'prestige' like
| working for FAANG or whatever. Still, I learned pretty
| quickly to not trust a bunch of naive 'intuitive' signals.
| smabie wrote:
| The hard truth is that Ivy / FAANG talent is usually higher
| quality. People just don't want to believe it.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Sounds like you are inflating your own ego...
| smabie wrote:
| I never graduated college and have never worked at a
| FAANG.
| nperez wrote:
| I began my career in a startup where pretty much everyone
| else but myself was an Ivy grad, with many coming from
| FAANG internships, and I have very high opinions of them.
| We all were very driven and all had things to teach each
| other. I don't want to downplay the notion that it's an
| indicator of high quality talent. I just think that it
| shouldn't be downplayed that growing up developing
| software out of an interest in the work is a strong
| indicator too.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| It carries signal for being above average relative to the
| rest of the population, which is a low bar to begin with.
|
| It doesn't carry much signal for being great.
| smabie wrote:
| This is true, but any signal for future greatness is
| really weak I think.
| Comma2976 wrote:
| I have found that I can take a single look and identify
| the best engineer and all around smartest guy in a room,
| often also the funniest, with the caveat that I need a
| mirror to do it.
| sgu999 wrote:
| I really thought you were a proper wanker until I reached
| the end of your sentence, well done
| kramerger wrote:
| > I really hate to Jimmy Wales people about this
|
| Thanks for making me laugh, I think that's worth a few bucks.
|
| I donated every year to Wikipedia until I learned that (1) they
| have a huge chest of money, (2) their expenses could be much
| lower if they were not a 500-man SF company.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Yeah, I don't care about the GoatCounter, even if it looks like
| a nice project, but the Wales reference is worth a one time
| donation.
| jhfdbkofdchk wrote:
| Haha, same!
| esun wrote:
| > I really hate to Jimmy Wales people about this
|
| Have a case of beer on me, mate.
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Hey, I see an intense dislike for Jimmy Wales in this thread.
| Is there anything well written I can read about it to inform
| myself?
| em-bee wrote:
| it refers to how wikipedia is frequently asking for money
| when you browse it, and how some people get annoyed by that.
| it's not personal.
| arp242 wrote:
| I don't dislike Jimmy Wales. "Please donate to Wikipedia" is
| one of the most common "please donate" type messages, and at
| least in the past it was usually written from the first
| person with a picture of Jimmy Wales' (usually unshaven) mug.
| It's just a joke. Nothing more.
| input_sh wrote:
| It's not for Jimmy Wales specifically, HN just tends to have
| a kneejerk reaction towards any NGOs asking for money.
| Mozilla, Wikimedia, Gnome, FSF, Creative Commons, it really
| doesn't matter. Any thread even tangentially related to such
| orgs is always met with dozens of comments where people go
| out of their way to either justify not donating, or saying
| how they used to donate but stopped because of X, Y and Z.
|
| The only exception to the rule is the Internet Archive.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Isn't this obvious candidate for a paid SaaS? Maybe someone more
| familiar with matter at hand can enlighten me on why the
| developer doesn't simply make the hosted version a paid-for
| service instead of asking for donations?
| dewey wrote:
| > why the developer doesn't simply make the hosted version a
| paid-for service
|
| Because it's not always simple and being a good developer in
| many cases doesn't overlap with being good at marketing or
| business as it's not what they are passionate about. There's a
| good blog post about Plausible Analytics before and after the
| marketing co-founder joined, wasn't able to find it right now
| though.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Is it this one:https://plausible.io/blog/blog-post-changed-
| my-startup
| dewey wrote:
| Maybe it was a Tweet, it was the MRR chart annotated with
| "when the marketing co founder joined" or something.
| soneca wrote:
| Anyone with more context knows why they are looking for a job
| outside software development being a software developer?
| sureglymop wrote:
| Maybe they have a hard time finding a software dev job, they
| seem to be self taught. Or perhaps just maximizing the process
| as in applying wherever possible.
| richrichardsson wrote:
| Speculation:
|
| Social security in Ireland is similar to UK and you have to
| apply for _any_ job to qualify.
|
| or
|
| Things are getting to the point he literally would do anything
| to not end up homeless.
| upmostly wrote:
| Can I offer a more pessimistic view?
|
| This is Darwinism.
|
| If the author has a seemingly popular and monetisable (sic)
| product with real users, yet has failed to achieve the state of
| ramen profitable, then perhaps this is fate.
|
| Perhaps he's not able to be at the helm of a product that people
| would rely on in their production apps.
|
| What if the author of this app is unable to run the product
| successfully and is forced to close it down. What happens to the
| thousands of users who have integrated his product in their
| stack? An expensive migration. Loss of profit for them.
|
| Perhaps it's better to choose another product that is able to be
| profitable.
| mrtksn wrote:
| >What if the author of this app is unable to run the product
| successfully and is forced to close it down.
|
| That's why many businesses would not consider a free service or
| a product. The developer of SQLite sells licenses for his
| public domain code for this very reason.
| upmostly wrote:
| True.
|
| I knew my comment would be downvoted.
|
| Interestingly, one comment above said the author did not
| release an update in over a year...
| mrtksn wrote:
| Maybe your comment comes as a too harsh of a portrayal of
| the person who provides valuable product or service for
| free but IMHO from business standpoint its true.
|
| If you want money ask for it and I don't mean donations.
| The strange dynamic where you collect street cred in
| exchange for your work and expect to be taken care for
| doesn't work. Even if he finds a job and doesn't need
| donations, he will be working for people who wanted money
| and asked for it. It's the same thing with directly asking
| money for your services but with extra steps where you pay
| other people for doing the asking.
| developer93 wrote:
| Is about the knowing the value you're providing
| eviks wrote:
| The thousands of users have the power to avoid costly migration
| via a less costly payment just like Darwin prescribed
| mrtksn wrote:
| I disagree, there's no contract or expectation of performance
| with a donation. People who depend on products like paying
| for that product because this sets expectations.
| manjunaths wrote:
| The contributing page is not loading for me, did we hug it to
| death?
| jdsleppy wrote:
| Reading that other people donated helped me to do so. I'm writing
| this to help other people get over the decision hump.
|
| I self-host his GoatCounter on a fun site of mine. I like this
| style of app: small, simple binary that can share a machine with
| lots of other things.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Same. Donated $500.
| slyall wrote:
| I was sponsoring him on Patreon for $2/month but it looks like he
| deleted his Patreon back in mid-2021 and I didn't notice.
|
| I'm using him for 4 of my personal websites ( 172, 1135, 25 and
| 22 visits in the last month ). Satisfied with the product so I've
| sponsored him on github.
| newusertoday wrote:
| I don't understand why do developers provide hosted version for
| free? That too when you are short of cash. You have already
| provided opensource sw, whoever wants to use it can selfhost and
| bear the infrastructure costs. You can also provide paid version
| of it for people who don't want to self host. If you do want to
| subsidize have some other source of income. IT almost feels like
| self-inflicted pain.
| diggan wrote:
| The hosted platform is specifically for small projects and
| personal homepages, not for big businesses. The platform they
| run probably have monthly expenses below 50 USD/month, I don't
| think that's their biggest expense, if you compare to rent and
| groceries...
| arp242 wrote:
| The infra costs are covered, with some to spare; that's not
| really the problem. It's more "I have this GoatCounter thing
| anyway, so might as well ask people using it for some help now
| I really need it." That's why it's in the release notes (never
| expected it to be posted here).
| goat-throwaway wrote:
| As a team lead I have a capped budget that I can spend on
| tools/saas etc. Unfortunately I cant do a donation using this.
|
| Indie devs need to understand this, put up a pro plan and a
| checkout link that sends an invoice so that finance folks are ok.
|
| I hope he pulls through this, we need more indie software.
| distances wrote:
| Agreed. A paid plan with a proper invoice is so so much easier
| to file as a business expense, both at a big business and as an
| independent. I don't know how to even start doing that with a
| donation.
| trevyn wrote:
| To clarify, a "paid plan" with zero benefits over free use is
| OK?
| toldyouso2022 wrote:
| Put "faster support" and then don't do anything different (or
| maybe do, it's money after all)
| mg wrote:
| Compare that to Plausible: Over $2M in revenue last year.
|
| Plausible started in 2019. Not sure when GoatCounter started.
| Clicking on "blame" for the readme file in the repo, I see a
| commit from 5 years ago.
|
| I can very much empathize that adding a "buy" button is a hump to
| get over when you just wanna build something cool and share it
| with like-minded people. I have the same issue with every project
| I build. I guess one should train to jump over one's shadow in
| this regard.
| diggan wrote:
| > Not sure when GoatCounter started
|
| "Hello, world" - arp242 committed on May 28, 2019 -
| 66a4d7f9b7af8dccacaf3ad8a9fb57a9f9008030 -
| https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter/commit/66a4d7f9b7af8dc...
|
| Plausible:
|
| "Initial commit" - ukutaht committed - on Sep 2, 2019 -
| 779d64e19a26a4e4944d4f0d7d9e280a27fbc6e5 -
| https://github.com/plausible/analytics/commit/779d64e19a26a4...
| spiffytech wrote:
| GoatCounter previously offered paid plans. Not sure why that
| changed.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210108150746/https://www.goatc...
| arp242 wrote:
| GoatCounter started a few months before Plausible.
|
| Giving it away for free didn't help, but "making money" was
| never really a goal as such. I think "being free" is important
| if you want to be a viable alternative for Google Analytics.
| EUR9/month is nothing for a business, but who is paying that
| for a blog or hobby site (or even some small businesses)?
|
| I already decided a few years ago that "covers hosting" is good
| enough. It's just that circumstances conspired to put in this
| rather uncomfortable position.
| endofreach wrote:
| As much as i admire that: The language you wrote that in,
| only exists, because google found a way to grow by making
| money.
|
| To be fair, not sure if this is a pro or contra: GoatCounter
| wouldn't need to exist, if google didn't find the way they
| did, to make money.
|
| Anyway, cool product. Love OSS but don't mind paying for
| simple solutions as a business. It's not only about saving
| time but also about keeping focus.
| Gentil wrote:
| > but who is paying that for a blog or hobby site (or even
| some small businesses)?
|
| I was trying to. I highly recommend you to bring back the
| paid plans. Just leave it as it was. Opt-in for personal and
| for small commercial websites, paid plan. Like someone else
| mentioned, for a business, invoices helps a lot to bill as
| expense if they want to pay you.
| bombcar wrote:
| Always ALWAYS have a way to give money that results in a
| professional-looking invoice for a professional-sounding
| product. That's a great way for people in business to get the
| cost expensed.
| soneca wrote:
| It's very very risky to optimize for just "good enough". You
| have to build some reserve, or you risk being in the
| situation you are in.
|
| You don't need to optimize to earn tons of money, but minimum
| threshold should more than just good enough. So, if things go
| wrong, you can spend that reserve and actually be on a "good
| enough" position until you figure things out
| vgel wrote:
| Thank you for making it free! I've used it on my blog
| (https://vgel.me) forever, since back before I ever would've
| paid for analytics, and it's been rock-solid the whole time.
| Some of the most "set it and forget it" software I use. I
| definitely owe you a donation so I'm glad I saw this!
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| > Over $2M in revenue last year.
|
| Plausible also has a co-founder who does marketing, and is
| evidently very good at it. That's perhaps a more important
| factor in success than simply offering a paid plan.
|
| It looks like success was far from guaranteed before he was
| hired ($400 MRR and not growing).
| https://plausible.io/blog/open-source-saas#february-looking-...
| RunSet wrote:
| Marketing is like juicing in athletics.
|
| It undermines the nominal reason for the enterprise's
| existence (competition) but once a single competitor begins
| practicing it, everyone else also has to- not to any benefit,
| but just to maintain their status quo.
| Veuxdo wrote:
| > Marketing is like juicing in athletics.
|
| This is far, far too cynical. Marketing is not cheating. To
| keep the sports metaphor, marketing is training. It's
| unglamorous, time-consuming, and (for most) not fun. But,
| if you want to succeed as a professional, you have to do
| it.
| thfuran wrote:
| Training actually improves the product (athletic
| performance). Does an athlete going on a commercial to
| hawk shoes make them a better athlete or make the shoes
| better? Would the answer be different once we change
| domains back to software? Marketing may be a necessary
| business activity in the current environment, but it is
| not at all like training in its fundamental effect on the
| quality of the product. (Though in that regard, I think
| juicing was a bit awkward as an analogy)
| yojo wrote:
| As a single business, marketing is a totally rational way
| to boost sales. Collectively, it's just a tax.
|
| If no one was paying, but people were still writing, the
| best solutions would likely bubble to the top. But as
| soon as someone pays for placement, everyone needs to.
| You end up with a new normal that's the same as before
| (modulo those products that are better at marketing) but
| everyone had to pay a bunch of money.
|
| Short of literally banning advertising, there's no way
| around it/any serious business needs to do it. But I get
| the take that it's a cost that is only necessary because
| everyone else is doing it.
| Veuxdo wrote:
| > If no one was paying, but people were still writing,
| the best solutions would likely bubble to the top.
|
| I think that's far from guaranteed. It could very well be
| the case that the oldest, most established, solutions
| would dominate the top, for instance.
| thfuran wrote:
| >You end up with a new normal that's the same as before
| (modulo those products that are better at marketing) but
| everyone had to pay a bunch of money.
|
| I think the situation is almost guaranteed to be worse
| because there are now stronger incentives to manipulate
| and deceive.
| pakitan wrote:
| You're confusing paid advertising with marketing.
| Marketing is interweaved in almost any business activity.
| No marketing means you literally register a company and
| then wait in your house for someone to randomly walk in
| and pay you for you services. And if that miraculously
| happens, you treat them as badly as you can and do the
| worst possible job, just to make sure you don't
| inadvertently get some word of mouth referrals.
| Veuxdo wrote:
| This is a good point that I'm glad you called out. Having
| a logo is marketing. Having a website is marketing. Every
| blog post, tweet, like, reshare, etc. is marketing. This
| comment could be considered marketing if you look hard
| enough.
| yojo wrote:
| You're right that I was implicitly referring to top of
| funnel marketing - things you do to make people aware of
| your business and get them to your business. And yes, I
| was most focused on advertising.
|
| I would argue that customer service and the actual job
| done are part of the product, since they're part of the
| value you're delivering to the customer. By that logic
| one could include the warm fuzzy feeling they get from
| some really slick copy, but to my mind it feels
| different. I'm having trouble formalizing the line here.
|
| I'll also concede that there are things that fall under
| the aegis of "marketing" that are not direct transfers of
| money for placement - e.g. cold calling, content
| marketing, SEO, etc. many of them are zero-sum games, a
| few are not.
| pakitan wrote:
| One of the dumbest takes I've seen in a while. Good
| customer service is like juicing in athletics. You can get
| away just fine without it but once those pesky competitors
| stop yelling at their customers, you're kinda forced to do
| the same as well. Not to any benefit but just to maintain
| the status quo.
| RunSet wrote:
| Diligent readers will observe which aspect(s) of your
| attempted equivalence do not pertain.
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| Unfortunately we don't live in the land of omniscient
| rational actors.
|
| Being able to find customers and explain your products
| value to them, that being marketing, is an essential part
| of producing a product.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| If only marketing stopped at explaining the (actual)
| value...
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| If you can find a meaningful and clear line suitable for
| use in regulations I'm sure there's some people who would
| like to hear it.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Bringing attention to the existence of a thing isn't
| juicing, it's a necessary part of making something useful.
| If you build something that's potentially useful but no one
| ever hears of it, it isn't actually useful until someone
| hears of it.
| RunSet wrote:
| Honest, unpaid word of mouth might serve that function if
| not for the hired shouters and resultant ambient
| dishonesty.
|
| Flipping the microscope, paid promotions distract from
| honest testimonials with no profit motive.
|
| "We are improving your search results by prepending sales
| brochures."
| arp242 wrote:
| There are really two types of "marketing":
|
| - "Hey, here's something interesting you might be
| interested in!"
|
| - "Drink Coca Cola"
|
| The second type of marketing is the sort of zero-sum game
| you're talking about. Everyone already knows about this,
| Coca Cola and Pepsi spend phenomenal amounts of money, and
| it kind of just cancels out.
|
| But the first type of marketing is rather different. The
| simplest kind is making something and then telling people
| that you made it.
| mrmanner wrote:
| This assumes all potential customers know all products and
| services somehow, without the enterprises communicating
| their existence? Without marketing, how would we know that
| website analytics as a service even exists?
|
| Sure we could guess and randomly reach out to companies to
| ask if they provide it. Answering those inquiries could
| easily be considered marketing, though.
| arp242 wrote:
| > Plausible also has a co-founder who does marketing, and is
| evidently very good at it. That's perhaps a more important
| factor in success than simply offering a paid plan.
|
| Yes, I agree. This is also what I told the NLnet people a few
| years back, but while there's a lot of budget for specific
| technical things, there isn't really any money set aside for
| more "soft" aspects like this.
| c12 wrote:
| goat counter did in the beginning have a paid tier that I was
| subscribed to but the author found it too much hassle to deal
| with and so removed it.
| pgt wrote:
| Slightly disappointed that this does not count actual goats in my
| yard.
| ushakov wrote:
| His resume says he's worked on GoatCounter since 2019 full-time?
|
| https://www.arp242.net/cv/CV-MartinTournoij.pdf
| svnsvnese wrote:
| This is slightly adjacent to the topic but I think a very
| important one.
|
| I do not know much about Goatcounter and the creator but after
| looking at his resume, I feel he obviously has a very marketable
| skills and with over 10+ year of experience, I feel one should
| have enough put away for rough times like this (forgive me if I
| am missing some context about this specific case, but I think
| this point applies in general to everyone imho)
|
| I've had my own troubles in the past (and learned from it), where
| I made unwise investment choices and when some unforeseen
| circumstances came up, I found myself cash-poor and struggling a
| bit, even though I was employed at that time.
|
| Here's the wiki from bogleheads [0] that gives a good framework
| on how to think about investing and what to prioritize. First
| thing to do if you do not already, when the times are good is to
| build an emergency fund.
|
| [0] https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Prioritizing_investments
| arp242 wrote:
| Well, there's a long chain of events over the last ~3 years
| leading up to this point, but I don't really feel like
| explaining everything in detail (and I don't think it's all
| that interesting in the first place). Also I never made that
| much in software dev in the first place.
| arp242 wrote:
| Thanks everyone!
|
| I should have updated this last week as I had raised enough money
| and I'm starting a job next Monday. So things should be grand
| going forward for now.
| ushakov wrote:
| Really glad things turned out well for you!
|
| I'm in a similar position now, so if anyone is looking for a
| full-stack TypeScript engineer with open-source background
| (https://github.com/mishushakov) let's chat!
| CaptainFever wrote:
| That's awesome! Happy that it turned out well.
| ismaildonmez wrote:
| I love https://github.com/arp242/uni, all the best luck with
| everything!
| janmo wrote:
| Here are a few ideas to build the next great analytics tool,
| these are the main reasons why I build my own little tool for my
| websites:
|
| 1. Find a way to also count users with Ad Blocker. Google
| Analytics and even Plausible (unless when self hosted) don't
| track users with an Ad Blocker.
|
| 2. Show how many users are using an Ad Blocker, this is a very
| important metric when a site is relying on ad revenue. It turned
| out that 30-33% of my traffic was using an Ad Blocker, which
| prompted me to implement a fallback where I show the user a
| banner with an affiliate link instead.
|
| 3. Offer an unlimited free tier, under the condition that a
| summary of the stats is visible to everyone, a bit like Github
| used to work. Users can then hide to make their stats private.
| arbol wrote:
| Ad blocker tracking is easy. You just proxy the calls to
| GA/plausible via some other domain.
| arp242 wrote:
| The first two aren't technically possible. And also not
| desirable, IMHO. That said, GoatCounter can import pageviews
| from logfiles like goaccess, so that's kind of the closest you
| can get (although then it's harder to filter bots, so it's more
| skewed the other way).
|
| That said, I do wish tools like uBlock would make it easier to
| give people more choice in what to block and not block, but
| that's not up to me (also in terms of ads; the other day I saw
| a site which has just <img src="/ad.png">, which I don't really
| see any problem with, and uBlock goes out of its way to block
| that - meh).
| jddj wrote:
| I recently had a page import something like _site_stats.js_
| (site meant as in a physical building /location) from the
| same domain as the html request and ublock blocked it.
|
| Had to rename the bundle.
|
| Thanks for goatcounter btw, I've got a little website that
| hosts useful information that's hard to find otherwise for a
| little community (~20 visits / day) and goatcounter has been
| reliably telling me whether or not people still use it for a
| few years now.
| nop_slide wrote:
| I've been sponsoring on GitHub for probably two years now, didn't
| even realize the paid plans went away (that was what I initially
| sponsored for).
|
| Have nothing else to add other than GoatCounter has been awesome.
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