Developers, Start Paying For Stuff, Will You?

I can sense your contempt. But hear me out here.

There are some counter-intuitive advantages to taming that inner instinct and natural pride a developer has, which makes him/her want to always develop stuff instead of paying for it. Here is a couple…

1. You will be able to relate: Till I started paying for stuff, I had a hard time relating to people who pay for stuff. That’s not a helpful mindset to have when you are developing products yourself that you expect people to pay. If you have to create high quality, you will need to experience high quality. Most of them cost some money.

2. You will see that it’s not just about the code: A right product means care, attention to detail, handling weird edge cases, proper documentation, UX, excellent onboarding, follow-up, support, and sound design. Signing up and paying for products like Intercom or Basecamp exposed me to the other aspects of product making and showed me first-hand what it ‘feels’ like to be a part of a pleasant experience.

3. Your app/project inherits the qualities of high quality paid products: Contrary to popular belief, open-source products aren’t that efficient at getting jobs done. It is because a random set of developers builds it from different parts of the world with different agendas. There is almost no research, no prioritization, and because developers use it, there is not much need for great onboarding, great UI, and support. Using Slack or Base camp makes your projects better. They allow you to consider more things, think broader and more organized get better consensus, and overall make for a better whatever-you-are-making. It is a little known secret that a product maker cannot make a great product without having experienced several great products themselves. Conversely, an excellent maker builds his creation by the combined influence of the ethos of all the products he/she has experienced until then. If you want to make great products, experience great products

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