> The companies that make money by showing advertising are *content > providers* such as newspapers, TV networks, Q&A sites,... They have *no > other source of revenue*. >
I should clarify that by "TV networks" I mean broadcast networks, not cable companies that make money via subscriptions, and that I'm specifically talking about online newspaper sites that offer free content. Some newspaper sites like WSJ and NYT are offering subscriptions, so do have a source of revenue outside of ads. > Hosting sites like GitHub make their money from *paid accounts*. They do > not need advertising revenue. Just because the "public" face of GitHub is > their free accounts does not mean that is the bulk of their activity. It > is very common, and popular, for cloud sites to have a free tier. Even > production hosting sites do this. > > It is good marketing and helps train folks to use their tools, so that > when the time comes to recommend a hosting site or platform for a > commercial project, they will naturally gravitate to the site they're > already using and like. > > The idea that GitHub, or Heroku, or OpenShift, or Gitorious, or Bitbucket, > or Pythonanywhere, or ShinyApps, or... would at some point go "Hah! You're > trapped!" and start demanding payment for free accounts, inserting > compulsory advertising, or otherwise attacking their clients is so odd that > I have never before heard it expressed as a serious concern in any > open-source organization. > > Given that GitHub is Linus Torvald's project, > Sorry -- I should have verified that before parroting it. > there may be poison pills in their charter to prevent this even in a > hostile takeover. Imagine the reaction if one of these companies did what > is being suggested. Their clients would vanish. It's not hard to move from > site to site, especially if one is using a DVCS like git. The folks > running these companies are not stupid, and most of the companies are > associated with open source in some way. > > -- Pat >
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