If the terminal (the Linux terminal, even) cannot remain an unmonetized sanctuary, truly all is lost. Whatever alternative monetization npm comes up with will be cynical. It is a law of economics that there is no such thing as non-cynical monetization. I don't see any potential for being both pro-FYPM and anti-DRM. Philosophically, I'm on the side of the hackers, but socioculturally, I'm with the artistes, as hacker culture unfortunately reveals itself to be more and more problematic with each passing year. Hopefully some kind of social dividend will come to the rescue and free people to do creative things without having to get their hands dirty with monetization.
I think that what Feross did is more of an outcry... a very public and impossible to ignore way to attract attention over the topic of funding for open source maintainers. And from this point of view, he succeeded.
Succeeded in setting a precedent which if not squashed will lead to a 1000s and 1000s of lines of ads in ci logs and installation logs. Trying to read through a log will be as bad as trying to read through your email inbox without a spam filter.
Npm did ban further adverts in the terminal. And I think OpenCollective messages (which are still allowed) can be disabled using a configuration setting.
Other than that it's obvious we feel differently about the subject - and there's no absolute truth to the situation - so I'm not going to take the discussion further than that!
If the terminal (the Linux terminal, even) cannot remain an unmonetized sanctuary, truly all is lost. Whatever alternative monetization npm comes up with will be cynical. It is a law of economics that there is no such thing as non-cynical monetization. I don't see any potential for being both pro-FYPM and anti-DRM. Philosophically, I'm on the side of the hackers, but socioculturally, I'm with the artistes, as hacker culture unfortunately reveals itself to be more and more problematic with each passing year. Hopefully some kind of social dividend will come to the rescue and free people to do creative things without having to get their hands dirty with monetization.
I think that what Feross did is more of an outcry... a very public and impossible to ignore way to attract attention over the topic of funding for open source maintainers. And from this point of view, he succeeded.
Succeeded in setting a precedent which if not squashed will lead to a 1000s and 1000s of lines of ads in ci logs and installation logs. Trying to read through a log will be as bad as trying to read through your email inbox without a spam filter.
Npm did ban further adverts in the terminal. And I think OpenCollective messages (which are still allowed) can be disabled using a configuration setting.
Other than that it's obvious we feel differently about the subject - and there's no absolute truth to the situation - so I'm not going to take the discussion further than that!
But we could’ve created an entirely new industry of terminal ad blockers! Imagine how many jobs we could’ve provided! 🙃