> We still use GitHub Actions but our monthly bill is now flat because we pay for a server.
Caveat here being that GitHub is exploring charging a usage-based fee for self-hosted GitHub Action runners [1]. While they've halted it for now, it's something worth being aware of as you assess your costs. This is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the order of magnitude savings you've described.
Allegedly this is because whenever you have a self-hosted runner, it's actually a Microsoft-hosted runner that is notifying your runner and then polling for it to complete. I wish I was joking.
Haha, we don't use Kubernetes. It is a single large server with plenty of space for runners. It is as simple and boring as it gets. The only fun part is that we use Firecracker for the actual runners. It is provides nice isolation and it is very easy to work with.
But you can run Steam on Linux. You don't have to worry about whether they're going to discontinue the cheap Steam Box you were relying on. And they have built up credibility from decades of not pulling the rug, in a way that Apple hasn't and probably can't.
Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.
Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.
> Apple has been running the iTunes Store without "pulling the rug" for about as many years as Steam has existed.
Maybe. It's not been a very prominent line of business for them, and even then I can recall a couple of significant dramas over that time - didn't they merge two different kinds of libraries and cause confusion? The unremovable U2 album is also a cause for concern, not because an extra album is bad but because it implies they see the contents of your library as up to them rather than you. Most of all, they went out of their way to break music being sold by Real for iPods, which hardly suggests a company committed to interoperability and open platforms.
> Hell, they ditched DRM on music in that time period too and will sell you lossless ALAC as well as MP4 audio. (They obviously weren't able to talk Hollywood into that.) Steam is DRM that ensures the capability to pull rugs.
Not "obvious" at all, and precisely the point at issue. I'm happy to buy music from Apple, but movies require another level of trust that they haven't reached yet. I will grudgingly, cautiously buy games from Steam when they're not available on itch/GoG, and maybe that's unfair, but Apple have never sent me the message that they want or care about me (a non-Apple hardware user) as a customer of their movies.
The number of people doing it is irrelevant because the larger point was being able to download the movie on any platform. Steam on Linux is just a good example of supporting almost all platforms to distribute media.
You can download a copy of the installers and game files on steam. Steam allows you to install on any hard drive or device that runs Steam. Streaming apps download and store data in drm encrypted formats and by and large do not allow you to keep copies of that data for your own use.
I sat in a meeting at a data broker in 1998 where one of their product managers was strangely proud about how they could determine menstrual cycles from purchase records. It wasn't just hygiene products either. They already have that data and manipulate women with targeted ads timed for the optimal receptivity.
My favorite is when someone discovers they haven't yet granted Zoom screensharing permission, and that they need to exit the call to re-launch the application with the permission granted.
As others have said there are challenges with the core assumption that something can similultaneously be open source and restricted from being used in AI training.
Caveat here being that GitHub is exploring charging a usage-based fee for self-hosted GitHub Action runners [1]. While they've halted it for now, it's something worth being aware of as you assess your costs. This is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the order of magnitude savings you've described.
[1]: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-12-16-coming-soon-simpler...
reply