Hi there, my name is Fupeng Wang.
I am a senior full-stack engineer, and author of a 17.5k open-source project, PMP. Now I am developing a Notion-style knowledge base
HuashuiAI including AI writing and collaboration, using React Nextjs and Supabase.
Background
In October of this year, Vue author Evan You announced the establishment of VoiceZero, aiming to solve problems such as fragmented JS toolchains, incompatibility, and low efficiency. VoiceZero has received millions of dollars in investment and now has products under development, Rolldown and Oxc.
For this reason, two weeks ago I wrote an article What is Evan You doing by creating VoidZero, and what are the issues with JS toolchains? Analyzed the current situation and problems of front-end JS toolchains.
But there is another question that everyone has been discussing, a very practical one: how can VoidZero make a profit? Investment inevitably requires returns, and capital is profit driven.
How can we make money? Vite can't be paid to use it, can we. Relying on community sponsorship? Pull it down, this basic tool relies on sponsorship and can refer to the story of the core-js author.
Author's explanation
Someone replied below the article just now, citing the words of Vue author Evan You himself.
- End to end services for enterprises......
- Differentiated licensing model......
- Product matrix and traffic guidance......
- Ecosystem building and partnership relationships......
I also found a tweet from the author, which was also quite vague. I completely understand this. Talking about money hurts emotions, talking about technology in a high-profile manner, and making money requires being low-key.
All of these are correct, but saying it means not saying anything, and after reading it, I don't know anything. Just like how Web3 provides a formal explanation of ten thousand words and a layman's explanation of virtual currency.
What things are suitable for payment?
Firstly, tools such as Vite and SWC cannot be used for a fee. There are too many products of the same type, so if you charge, everyone won't need to use them. Of course, being free does not mean it has no value. With more users, there is a great potential for natural value.
There are paid tools available. For example, the Tiptap rich text editor is free to use, but some advanced features and APIs are paid for. For example, the cursor editor heavily relies on AI capabilities, so it requires payment for use.
Most AI related development tools and services are paid for, such as v0 and bolt, as well as Notion AI. But these are not so closely related to Vite and VoidZero.
In the fields of research and technology, the most common form of payment is online services such as servers, databases, storage, CDN, Edge. There are also some popular services, such as login verification, payment, email notifications, monitoring alarms, content review, etc.
Large platforms such as Amazon,Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc. There are also many small and medium-sized platforms, such as Vercel Supabase, Netlify, etc.
Deno received a $20M investment in 2022, how will it make a profit? It developed Deno Deploy, focusing on the Edge advantage, ultimately aiming to make money through online services.
As long as there is a deploy entry point, the subsequent database, storage, and CDN can be discussed. You can choose to integrate with other service providers or develop your own.
But what about those small and medium-sized platforms without traffic? Is it possible to invest in Vite as an entry point? Vite has a very large user base, which is definitely a great idea.
Analyze the investors of VoiceZero
Look at VoidZero's investors, StackBlitz Supabase Sentry Netlify Strikingly Prisma Resend, they are all fee based projects, covering various fields such as server, deployment, databases, third-party services, online monitoring, etc.
They have competitors, how can they better acquire users and cultivate user habits? Vite has a massive user base, and as long as guidance is done well, it will bring huge traffic, which in turn will lead to a large number of paid upgrades.
For example, if I want to integrate a service for sending emails in the project and use the Vite command to integrate Resend, do you want to use it or manually configure it yourself? Do you want to do project statistics and monitoring? Vite can integrate Sentry with just one click. Do you want to use it or do you need to configure other platforms yourself?
For experienced coders, they may be able to configure these issues themselves, but for batches of newcomers, they will definitely choose the most direct way first, and gradually cultivate user habits.
I guess that in the next 2 years, Vite or VoiceZero will definitely integrate deployment services, or even develop their own deployment services. They will earn intermediary fees.
I really hope this model can work and explore a profitable path for open source projects!
The end
There will always be problems, needs, and opportunities in this world.
I remember when Gates said that 64MB of memory on a PC was perfect, and Jobs said that a 4-inch phone screen was perfect. Later on, there were also revolutionary changes.
Be a thoughtful person, keep observing the world, broaden your horizons, life is about turmoil.
By the way, I am looking for an international job opportunity, if you have a chance, welcome to connect me on my Github profile.
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