Obviously we all want to avoid enshittified (aggressively monetized) software or at least get our money’s worth. I’m looking at self-hosting software right now and one I’m looking has a pricing page but only for cloud (no other paywalled features) and is open source. I tried looking up future plans and didn’t find much, so it doesn’t seem like it will enshittify. (not related) I had thought about switching to Omnivore for a long time but then they merged with ElevenLabs and the rest is history.
My basic check is: Are there investors / vc people involved? If so, then it will inevitably enshittify. If not, then requires further investigation. OSI-approved open source is a big plus
Even when choosing what seems like good software, I think it’s important to consider switching costs. How easily can you move to another solution, say the second pick, if things go south?
Two very good points here. The second is the one I’ve been thinking about recently. It’s about considering what format your data is kept in and if you can usably get that out and implement it somewhere else without too much work.