Wanted to add another q̶u̶i̶c̶k̶ thought after reading a lot of replies here:
I think we should be careful in assuming intentions before the Bubble team has had a chance to respond properly. I’m as baffled as anyone as to how this decision was reached and communicated, but I don’t find it given that this somehow indicates a major change in the company’s culture or failure to commit to its founding values. I think it’s important for now to see this as what it probably was: a major miscalculation and failure of communication.
Without getting philosophical, I’ll say that assuming the worst in people with very little information to go on is a major problem of our times and a seeming bi-product of how we live our online lives. Every assumption made about Bubble’s intentions is just that - assumptions. We should remember that Bubble has been bootstrapped for years by young founders just like many of its clients and that the transition from unknown startup with two employees to an industry leader with ripple effects probably far beyond their wildest imagination, we should all be understanding that it takes some adjustments to learn how to handle. I don’t find it completely unreasonable to turn the mirror at some of the more angry voices here and remind them that you did make the choice yourself to invest your time and money in a young company that’s going to go through growth pain, new investors, management changes, new boards and possible acquisitions in the years ahead. That’s a chance you were willing to take to get a low-cost development framework.
While I completely sympathise that yesterday’s move gave a strong sense of uncertainty and can affect people strongly bot financially and emotionally, I think it’s healthy to remember that this is by no means an unusual event for a startup to go through, and you shouldn’t expect this to be the last misstep they take.
While I have personally been more critical of yesterday’s event than anything prior to this, I also remain continually impressed and have a high level of faith in the integrity and ability of @emmanuel/@josh and their team to solve this. No one is more aware than they are of the challenging navigation they have to do in the coming days, and I personally find the calls for an apology to be quite unnecessary and unproductive. I also don’t expect a completely revamped pricing strategy to realistically be communicated a mere 18 hours since the last one was bombarded. What they decide today needs to balance the needs of the platforms Users with Bubble financial health for years to come: I wouldn’t want it rushed. In fact, I’d rather read about over the weekend or even later.
Af of now, you are still on the same plan as you were two days ago - take a breath and pretend nothing happened for now.
I hope I get the point through in my previous comments that my intention was to highlight what I thought was important:
- that the decision seemed incredibly rushed, not researched and frankly not even subject to common sense
- that the communication was extremely poorly executed
- that I think there’s an ongoing issue with agencies, freelancers and founders fighting an uphill battle to convince the market that Bubble is not just for MVP’s while Bubble themselves in many ways seem to fairly consistently communicate the opposite. I get the feeling a bit too often that Bubble don’t quite grasp the gravitas of what they’ve created and what it’s used for.
- that they also don’t seem to be fully aware that there’s a chain of communication that’s not serviced in the right way today: to publish these news without any indication to the thousands of developers who have clients to answer to is thoughtless, bordering on reckless.
- I also agree that going forward we need some guarantees in place that can remove some of the uncertainty that people are feeling now and have felt for a long time. As an example, to suggest applying this price change retroactively to existing apps seems to me pretty insane, and the reaction from the community is entirely predictable
Whether I was successfully able to convey this in a productive way I honestly don’t know, but at least it was my intention to do so.
Oh, and yeah, so I guess I’m unable to write short posts. I did try though.
For now, let’s give the team some room to breathe. Comment and provide feedback all you want, but let’s try to keep it constructive: if you have strong opinions about how the future of Bubble should look, it’s in your best interest to convey that in a way that they’ll listen to.