Out come the fingers made of foam
They finally open-sourced Rehoboam
Our societies have been thusly blessed
What it predicts could have anyone guessed
Targeted advertising wherever you roam
Vercel needs to stop with this bullshit. It is straight up predatory ”open” source. Like a trapper’s cage, there’s a convenient, tasty bait and then it’s too late.
Is it too cynical to say this might be a lesson devs need to learn the hard way?
Right now the JS community has whipped themselves into a frenzy into building on VC backed technology.
- They refuse to acknowledge that the loudest voices in the room are openly sponsored and invested in by the same VCs who own the companies behind said tech
- They see no issue with a lack of diversity in implementations, instead settling for "it's a standard". Of course, defining a standard without a healthy variety of implementations means you end up with standards that don't benefit from a wide range of voices until well after they land (see RSC)
At the end of the day, those two alone are a pretty harsh combo: A VC-backed network effect machine built across multiple brands, and high technical costs to building something that meets the collection of standards.
I don't think anyone but FAANG can really compete with that without also getting VC dollars, thus reinforcing the loop.
With grand promises rode the ploy
Venture capital, ahoy!
We make a lovable product to capture audience
Vendor lock them at the earliest convenience
Hey look at our awesome developer experience
Add ANSI and emojis and comments saying it’s genius
Some next level tech, plebs just don’t get it
Next round of funding, we’ve already spent it
I took the big dough, got puppets and framed it
R-O-I is bad though but layoffs gon’ fix it
Never mind the drama *cough* are ya gon’ install it
Run it, ship it, kill yourself with working on it
Entangle your business with it
Tell the client to deal with it
Bring it to the big wig
Get ’em to sign off on it
Crown your own sh*t
Dogfood is tasty, ain’t it
