Hopefully
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Somehow I think their days are numbered. Will RW8 work on Sonoma to be released this year? And Classic already has deprecation written into its name.
I donāt think thatās even a question. Itāll be some sort of subscription. This also might be why they may drop Classic within a year, as no one is going to pay a subscription for Classic and Elements.
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Worthless to me too.
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I understand why Dan decided to go the Elements route ā he handed over a lot of control over RW to Stacks, and ended up with something that was basically just a publishing platform for Stacks. The way he went about it, thoughā¦ well, weāve been through all that. The question now is what Elements brings to the table that Stacks Pro doesnāt. Clearly those of us who have invested in large collections of stacks arenāt going to rush down the Elements route, especially if we have to wait for developers to port their stacks over, and then have to buy them all over again. But for new users it is a different matter, and Stacks has never been particularly intuitive or user friendly for newcomers. There is plenty of scope for improvement.
Editing in Preview is one obvious example ā in Stacks 4 it used to be easier to do this because you could navigate from stack to stack with the arrow keys, but Stacks 5 removed this, and any hope that the new Stacks menu and keyboard commands would work in Preview has proved to be in vain. In Danās demonstration the current stack is highlighted in Preview, and this is a no-brainer enhancement too. His demo also showed an āinspectorā panel which seems a step-up from the Stacks HUD, where there is also plenty of scope for improvement. If it were possible to run Elements and Stacks (pretty much as is now), at least for the foreseeable future, this would also make it easier for RW/Stacks users to transition to RW/Elements.
The point is, Dan has to do something with RW to keep it viable, and we canāt go on demonising him forever. This is commerce, and business owners have bills to pay. What happened last year was a fiasco, but weāve moved on since, and while RW9 may not have been the most graceful climbdown, it provided continuity for RW/Stacks.
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Based on what Iāve seen in the demo video of RW Elementsā¦ itās subpar compared to Blocs. New users donāt know/care about the history with Stacks. Blocs is more mature when it comes to visual/intuitive editing. Thatās what Elements will have to compete with.
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That sums it up perfectly!
New marketing campaign for Discord:
Discord
Stuff to keep hidden from dad
Or:
Discord
Talks youāll never have with dad
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I certainly cannot agree to this.
This is not business like usual.
Good that customers will be able (hopefully sooner than later) decide for themselves which application to use.
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Business partners donāt steal each otherās business. Isaiah had been begged for years by his user base to break away on his own, yet he remained loyal and never did so. That is, until Dan committed to taking away Isaiahās source of income, without even attempting to open up the API to RW to enhance the UI experience or capabilities. In fact, Dan outright refused to open the API. Letās not attempt to propagate revisionist history and portray Dan as the victim. What occurred was not simply a matter of ājustā business.
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Iām not suggesting Dan is the victim, or what he did last year was acceptable. But weāre all still using his product, and some are making an income from it. Stacks breathed some life into Rapidweaver when template-based web creation apps (iWeb, Frontpage etc.) had pretty much reached the end of the road. But Isaiah was taking a risk building a business around someone elseās product, and Dan was taking a risk letting Stacks become so critical to his product. This wasnāt a formal partnership (it might have been better if it had been) and partnerships are particularly vulnerable in this age where nobody can get along with anyone else for more than a few months. Business partners do also frequently steal each othersā business ā Microsoft and Apple did it all the time, shafting partners small and large. They even tried to do it with each other. Yet weāre still using their stuff, too. Itās not nice, and there might be a better way, but itās how it is āand there is a lot of it.
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Next time I speak to Isaiah Iāll let him know. He certainly will understandā¦
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What is it with Realmac using Mastadon and Isaiah using Discuss?
I get that stuff isnāt broken at present, but I feel so sorry for developers. Their income must be affected and if thatās the case, thereās no incentive to keep stuff up to date.
I canāt be the only one looking at where else to take my money, because Iām really not confident in spending anymore on this platform at present. Such a shame as I love using the product and have learned so much from this community.
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But where else is there to go? Itās not just the RW/Stacks community that is affected, but the whole of the software industry. The combination of stagnant earnings, spiralling inflation, rising interest rates and uncertainty about the future means that everywhere people are cutting back on expenditure: individuals, small businesses, big businesses, government agencies, everyone. Even Apple, Facebook and Google are laying people off. Not only does this mean that someone is less likely to be spending money on a web application, it means that they are questioning whether to spend money on websites, whether they should just let domains go. The brutal truth is that if consumers are tightening their belts and cutting back on everything but basics, theyāre not browsing the web looking for new things to spend money on.
Weāre likely to see this go on for several years (and in the worst cases, it could result in a decades-long āJapanificationā of some economies). There isnāt going to be exciting new software development ā except around AI, which is where the investment if going. But even that isnāt immune to the broader economic picture. The platforms that are going to be most reliable are those that are most mature and āhunkered downā, which is exactly what RW/Stacks is right now. Nobody wants to fork out hundreds of dollars for a new set up, but $20 for a new stack every now and then is something we console ourselves with: people are eating less in restaurants, but weāre buying street food more.
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Typically, during times like this, in the US economy anyway, many new small businesses are formed. This creates a whole new market. Information, training, and publishing websites explode. So all is not lost.
And never does two wrongs make a right. It doesnāt matter if āeveryoneā is doing it because not everyone is. Personally, I wonāt get into business with anyone who operates this way. Iāve been there, done that, and obviously, it didnāt end well.
I seek the high path the best I can and ask my Lord for forgiveness where I fall short. I brush myself off and go again. Such is the cycle of life.
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And twice as many go bustā¦
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Entrepreneurship has its risk. Doesnāt mean there wonāt be websites to build. Just be smart about how you collect your fees.
Maybe do it the GoDaddy way?
You could be talking about any number of business sectors. I am working full-time on my book publishing, which used to bring in a small but useful income. In the 2021ā2 tax year it made about Ā£1,200 before tax (of course, I only have to pay tax because I have a pension). In the 2022ā3, Iāll have made a substantial loss due to having to buy a new Mac, and I very much doubt Iāll break even in the current tax year. Print costs have rocketed. If I didnāt enjoy it so much, Iād find a more profitable way to spend my time ā in fact, Iāll almost certainly have to do just that.
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There are plenty of options out there at varying costs. The cheaper the solution the more work is required. RW/Stacks is still cost effective. If you buy RW in a sale itās around Ā£32. There are lots of free stacks out there and some inexpensive ones. Or you fork out for one framework which would give you at least two years of developing. There are even free built in web builders for many hosting packages.
We are in a season of change on the internet. Blogs a giving way to digital gardens and AI threatens the traditional search engine. Having said that, I think weāre quite a way off from complete change. AIās biggest issue is copyright/privacy. Some countries are already putting restrictions on AI and Iām sure weāll see litigation against AI feeding off data that it hasnāt asked permission for. Plus with an energy crisis in in many nations the increased energy consumption from AI is also going raise questions.
I would suspect that the biggest impact on web design is more to do with inflation and interest rate increases. As you mentioned people have less disposable income and so may look at stop certain spending. For businesses, Iām not sure this would affect their web presence as that will still be an essential, although they may look at finding a cheaper developer.
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In the RW Club Elements forum it was mentioned that Foundry is going to be available on Elements. From the way RW uses Foundry, I wondered whether Elixirgraphics would be the first to join and it looks like they will. Thatās quite a big stacks developer that will be supporting Elements.
One Little Designerās latest newsletter said they would support both stacks and elements, with existing purchases of stacks available for free as elements, so no need to repurchase.
Havenāt looked at the Elements beta info video but it does look like some actual progress as opposed to the āimminentā beta that were due last year.
StacksProā¦still very quiet. Hopefully something more will be announced soon.
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