How We’re Building a Business to Last
RethinkDB [ex-]founder here.<p>The problem wasn&#x27;t that we (and presumably others) didn&#x27;t plan for open-core&#x2F;cloud. We did, but there are structural problems in the market that prevent this from working.<p>Open-core didn&#x27;t work because the space is so crowded with high-quality options that you have to give away enormous amount of functionality for free to get adoption. Given how complex distributed database products are, by the time you get to building a commercial edition you&#x27;re many years in and very short on cash.<p>Cloud didn&#x27;t work because AWS&#x2F;GCloud have enormous moats of pricing and brand recognition. They drive margins down to epsilon, and if your product sees meaningful adoption in the industry they launch their own service and take all your customers.