I like this post from Ian Coldwater. Slagging off users isn't a growth strategy. Now, you may not want growth, perfectly fine, but this is specifically calling out apps that want mainstream consumers
@scottjenson although it's not always the maintainers. Sometimes it's FOSS users too. If I had a buck every time someone (usually an non-professional) told me to use Gimp instead of Photoshop... no, I don't like Adobe (really, it's the opposite), but there are strong reasons (also, many we don't necessarily like) for many professionals to use PS. People don't get that.
@scottjenson you also can't have it both ways: it's fine to want very little growth, or aim to grow only in a very specific niche - I can think of a bunch of good examples of that. But too often people say they want growth, attract other developers or users on that basis, and then ... don't want to do the hard work or compromises of growth.
@scottjenson The biggest issue with a lot of programmer types (who tend to be the OSS contributors) is a trend to not understand why people people. And so can't seem to apply that level of requirement to their projects.
It's a generalisation, it's not true all the time, but it sure is a trend.
@mattwilcox and there are some well known projects (that shall not be named) that so perfectly prove this point
@scottjenson "I don't want growth" is such a wacky, fediverse-only take
@prism @scottjenson It’s fine for software to have different goals and audiences? Sometimes you maybe really like a certain way of doing things, so you make a tool that works just like that. Very few people will use it, but there’s a place for things like that.
But yeah, for things that’s intended to be mainstream and help a lot of people, it’s strange approach for sure.
@torb @scottjenson I find it really strange to pre-suppose that a thing will only appeal to a certain group and to not see this as a failure mode. The truth is no one knows how people will react to anything put out into the world. "you're the wrong audience for my tool" just feels like elitism dressed up as incompetence, frankly. If someone wants to act like a hermet, that's their right, but I also won't take their opinions very seriously.
@prism Why doesn‘t everyone just make pop music? Making music that intentionally only appeals to small groups of people like Metalheads or Goths is like gatekeeping. Seems like a strange failure mode to me.
@prism exactly, I'm always surprised when I hear that
