I’m sure it wouldn’t be profitable for them, but I feel like having some vendor sell a ‘reference machine’ that they know could run the core OS well would be a good in between. Someone like Framework selling a workstation looking desktop in a specific reference config couldn’t be too bad. Feels like just enough to get a community started. Most tasks really don’t need bleeding edge hardware anymore, the thing could go years without hardware changes.
A podcast host / journalist / dev who I've long appreciated occasionally waxes on the value of having a vanity project such as this. The model he compares it to is automakers building concept cars.
It's good to see their response. I feel like between the issues with CNCF being talked about on the Oxide and friends podcast, and this recent Jepson report, nats tends to get a decent amount of negative coverage.
Which is a shame, since I do think it's a great tool.
Blockbuster went out of business because they made the video rental market incredibly boring and had no vision for the future. Once they got market dominance it became just 500 copies of the first fast and furious as a guaranteed rental, and all the cool and interesting stuff gone.
Observationally, their model was roughly like this:
* For hit movies buy an obscene number of copies to rent month 1
* Sell off some for a discount as the rentals dwindled
* Discount anything over a reasonable backlog / duplicates set shortly after
Offhand I think they tried to time this to end well enough before the release windows slid to TV + Ads distribution.
* Rent the backlog until dead or until they sold in a discount bin
Some independent shops also competed. I recall my parents kindly rented a few less popular games they happened to carry. Not sure about videos, might have been better for stuff not mainstream enough at the big national chain.
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