5 ms·

> Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools. Throwing salt on the wound here but that’s just false. I mean, there’s copilot and it’s alt

> Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools. Throwing salt on the wound here but that’s just false. I mean, there’s copilot and it’s alternative that I can’t think of the name right now. more broadly there’s Jet brains ides, visual studio, Productivity apps, etc. look at product hunt or appsumo or popular show hns. Devs pay for tools, just not Kite. Edit: I should clarify, enough devs pay for tools to make the market sustainable. Not all devs pay for tools.

marcinzm 4y ago
How much of that is paid for by devs and how much is paid for by their employers?
- vkou 4y ago
  Getting my manager to spring for an IntelliJ license instead of a free Eclipse was the easiest thing in the world. (That manager getting the purchase order approved through corporate took months and months, but that's neither here nor there.)
jmnicolas 4y ago
Frankly I don't pay for tools. Money is tight at work and at home, so if it's not free it ain't happening.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  If you could actually prove it provided real benefits, it would still be worth it since you could know for sure that spending $5 on a tool will result in $10 extra earned. Sounds like people just didn't believe that there was that value being generated.
svnt 4y ago
You think copilot is self-sustaining/profitable?
- throwthere 4y ago
  > You think copilot is self-sustaining/profitable? Yes.
- dustingetz 4y ago
  copilot hit $40M ARR in the first month: 400k subscribers * $100/yr https://www.ciodive.com/news/github-copilot-microsoft-software-developer/628587/ https://www.ciodive.com/news/github-copilot-microsoft-softwa...
  - ekleraki 4y ago
    I am not sure that 400k subscribers translates to 400k paying users. As a student I may use it for free for example.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Most devs don't pay for their tools. Because they are employees and they need their bosses to sign off on expenses. I know some free lancers that pay for some tools but way more that don't. So, it's a small market that sustains a handful of really nice tools. Jetbrains is one of the more successful tool vendors in this space. But their tools are really essential to many developers. As a CTO, most of my budget goes to paid services that add clear value with a clear value proposition. The value proposition with developer tools is usually quite murky. It's all very subjective and preference based. So, something like kite is a hard sell. It's remarkable that they attracted so much investment. But of course that put them under enormous pressure to meet what were probably highly unrealistic revenue goals as well. That team might have made them a nice acquihire target at best.

marcinzm 4y ago

How much of that is paid for by devs and how much is paid for by their employers?

vkou 4y ago
Getting my manager to spring for an IntelliJ license instead of a free Eclipse was the easiest thing in the world. (That manager getting the purchase order approved through corporate took months and months, but that's neither here nor there.)

jmnicolas 4y ago

Frankly I don't pay for tools. Money is tight at work and at home, so if it's not free it ain't happening.

Gigachad 4y ago
If you could actually prove it provided real benefits, it would still be worth it since you could know for sure that spending $5 on a tool will result in $10 extra earned. Sounds like people just didn't believe that there was that value being generated.

svnt 4y ago

You think copilot is self-sustaining/profitable?

throwthere 4y ago
> You think copilot is self-sustaining/profitable? Yes.
dustingetz 4y ago
copilot hit $40M ARR in the first month: 400k subscribers * $100/yr https://www.ciodive.com/news/github-copilot-microsoft-software-developer/628587/ https://www.ciodive.com/news/github-copilot-microsoft-softwa...
- ekleraki 4y ago
  I am not sure that 400k subscribers translates to 400k paying users. As a student I may use it for free for example.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Most devs don't pay for their tools. Because they are employees and they need their bosses to sign off on expenses. I know some free lancers that pay for some tools but way more that don't. So, it's a small market that sustains a handful of really nice tools. Jetbrains is one of the more successful tool vendors in this space. But their tools are really essential to many developers. As a CTO, most of my budget goes to paid services that add clear value with a clear value proposition. The value proposition with developer tools is usually quite murky. It's all very subjective and preference based. So, something like kite is a hard sell. It's remarkable that they attracted so much investment. But of course that put them under enormous pressure to meet what were probably highly unrealistic revenue goals as well. That team might have made them a nice acquihire target at best.