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DrammBAlast Sunday at 8:30 PM4 repliesview on HN

Given how many developers here use LLMs daily, how do you think about defensibility? Tools like this seem relatively easy to reverse-engineer and replicate with enough time and LLM assistance. Did that influence your decision to charge a subscription or the change to a personal license?


Replies

a-velast Sunday at 8:37 PM

That's the reason why I added a subscription in the first place - you would pay a dirt-cheap price for a "boring" product with an added insurance that someone will be there to support it.

People will replicate it, sure, but supporting it regularly is another thing. I guess the majority wanted a perpetual license - so it's a win for the masses.

butlikeyesterday at 1:20 PM

It's not the idea, it's the implementation. It still takes time and effort to reverse-engineer, LLM assistance or not.

8avoyesterday at 2:28 AM

I cannot agree with you more.

Personally, I dare not replace the Dock with Windows-style task bar for fear that my OLED display might have burn-in on it. Yet, when I need an alternative, I would rather make an APP for my own.

risyachkalast Sunday at 8:35 PM

>> how do you think about defensibility?

defensibility nowadays is app support and development. the more work you pour into it the more defensible it will be.

I personally would gladly pay to have app constantly polished and improved. What I would not use is some vibe-coded alternative that was slopped with AI in a day and pushed to github with a tweet "i made a free X alternative" and then abandoned.

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