For years, many tech companies have made us dependent on their platforms through the value that we created within them. The moment we signed up, we agreed to terms of service that made them owners of our activity: our photos, messages, files... We trusted corporations. But as time has shown, they are not held accountable for what they do with all of that data. You gave them the rights, so they simply do what's necessary to align with incentives they don't disclose, which are far from the classic "make the world a better place."
Note this isn't true of all companies, but it's really hard to find one that stays true to a set of values. Personally, I don't care about the personal data they've collected from me, or the value I've generated on platforms like X or GitHub. Years ago, I had a different connection with the idea of reputation, but breaking dependency on that was very liberating. I don't share anything of value in those places, and if something has value, I make sure I use technology that ensures I'm the owner of my data—like Obsidian or Git forges where I can take a Git repo elsewhere if the platform becomes enshittified. Seeing X, Reddit, Strava, and many others building walls was a wake-up call for me. I still use them, but I don't engage with them beyond posting or reading small things here and there.
With Tuist, it's a different story. We are generating a lot of value—not just through the code that we bundle and release as a CLI or a publicly accessible server, but also through resources, ideas, and conversations. For many years, we didn't think much about where the value resided, or whether we were owners of it. Similarly, we had a bit of a wake-up call. @marek is more thoughtful in that regard. We moved our conversations from Slack to Discourse. We haven't fully completed the transition, but we encourage more discussions to happen there. For some people, this is uncomfortable. We are breaking the fast-paced conversation cycle that companies have conditioned us to expect, but the slower pace and the ownership of data and community experience are priceless.
I see many open source projects betting on Discord, and I'd wager we're not far from witnessing an enshittification similar to what began with Slack. If I were to start a community again, I would absolutely build it on something like Discourse. Someone might argue that it's costly, but it really just requires getting a server, connecting to it via SSH, and running a command. Sure, it's not a one-click experience, but you're choosing between surrendering to corporate control versus nurturing a community who will appreciate—years from now—being able to search for something and find what they're looking for. If you care about your community's long-term health, you should care about owning the value that community produces.
We've applied this to other areas too. We're close to moving off Google Workspace. We self-host many of the services we use and keep the data in our own databases. It's amazing how many quality open source projects exist that we can contribute to. It's about long-term investment over short-term convenience as the product of an uncertain future you don't control. I don't regret for a moment the move we made, and we'll continue to invest in this direction.
If you're just getting started and don't have the resources, it might make sense to initially be a "product" (which usually means not paying), but eventually flip the switch and become the owner of your digital assets. You'll be thankful for having made such a move.