This is true to an extent. A recent example that I witnessed unfold (we were a customer) is Earthly. They had a great core product that they offered a hosted version for, but most people just ended up hosting it themselves, and the idea never took off. Towards the end, they even tried to jump on the "BYOC" hype-train where they literally ran the product in your own cloud (B2B style) and couldn't make things work.
Of course, there are other factors to consider, but it's just a tiny anecdote that confirms what the author said: Companies don't like to pay for dev tools.
But Earthly is still in business, which sort of proves my point. Something which would never make money on its own (Earthly) can make money with just some cloud-hosted value add.
They've certainly pivoted their product in various ways, as any business does - my point was not to suggest that cloud devtools get free money and don't have to worry about the natural challenges of B2B product development. My point was just that, completely nonviable businesses can at least become viable by selling the cloud.
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This is true to an extent. A recent example that I witnessed unfold (we were a customer) is Earthly. They had a great core product that they offered a hosted version for, but most people just ended up hosting it themselves, and the idea never took off. Towards the end, they even tried to jump on the "BYOC" hype-train where they literally ran the product in your own cloud (B2B style) and couldn't make things work.
Of course, there are other factors to consider, but it's just a tiny anecdote that confirms what the author said: Companies don't like to pay for dev tools.
But Earthly is still in business, which sort of proves my point. Something which would never make money on its own (Earthly) can make money with just some cloud-hosted value add.
They've certainly pivoted their product in various ways, as any business does - my point was not to suggest that cloud devtools get free money and don't have to worry about the natural challenges of B2B product development. My point was just that, completely nonviable businesses can at least become viable by selling the cloud.