Author seems to have some deep lying trouble with India/Hinduism.
More on the point, I think this article ignores a lot of things very conveniently to make the point that we should not listen to Jason Fried because "Basecamp is a failure".
This is wrong on two points:
Firstly what evidence does the author have that Basecamp is a failure? That Asana and Trello have more signups? But those tools are targetted at a very different audience than Basecamp. I know individuals who use Asana and Trello for personal management and I don't know anybody who uses Basecamp. This also ignores that Basecamp is not a VC backed startup. They have bootstrapped their business from the start. This is unlike Asana (VC) or Trello (product from Fog Creek). I mean, if some vague estimation of weekly/monthly signups is your idea of what makes a failure then you need to rethink your arguments.
Secondly, even if we assume that Basecamp is a failure, that doesn't mean that what Jason Fried has to say is invalid. I mean, by making this point the author has contradicted his own point that we should be listening to the less-heard voices out there. Jason Fried frequently has some very good points to make about running a business and people find value in his words. What is the problem? If you don't like it, don't take it. If you want Andrew Filev to be heard as much, ask him to write more! I also find it surprising that the author thinks that nobody challenges the views of established writers like pg, because I see people call him out all the time!
I wouldn't call this a hit piece but I have no idea what value I derive from this article apart from the author's bitterness.
"Author seems to have some deep lying trouble with India/Hinduism."
Let's ignore that for the irrelevant ad hominem attack it is and get down the real issue here:
"If you don't like it, don't take it."
The implication of that (even if you don't mean it to be so) is that any old snake oil salesman or tub-thumper should be allowed to strut their stuff unhindered by criticism while leading their benighted flock up the garden path because it's up to them, and not you, to decide. Caveat emptor and all that.
Let me be the first to call that out as utter bullshit. Just because some swivel-eyed Valley tech preacher has some people swearing he healed their lumbago doesn't mean they deserve to avoid adverse examination. The author of the article in question here has every right - and indeed duty - to criticise Fried in this way if he has the information and the argument to do so. Let there be more of it, I say.
The team I work on has used Basecamp for years and recently tested out many of the competitors listed in this article. We were unenthused with all of them and found them to be missing features that we need and that I would consider basic to any project management system, one example being project templates.
Others had weird notification systems with no ability to customize or fix what was bothering us about them, weird and terrible UI issues, etc.
So while I am not an enthusiastic Basecamp user, we are still using it. This is not to say that the competing products were "bad", but they at least weren't right for us.
I am also unclear how Basecamp is considered a "failure"? Because it's growth has slowed as supposedly proven by the fact that they have removed their weekly signup figure from their homepage and because of stats gleaned from app downloads? I don't buy it.
If Basecamp is a failure hopefully I will have created a product one day that is a similar failure!
His argument that Basecamp is a failure in part because they don't have as many features as the competitors makes we wonder if he has actually read anything Jason has written.
Basecamp makes quite a bit of money, employs a bunch of people, and (as far as I can tell) the people that work there are happy and productive. I hope I can fail as hard one day.
This is a rather bitter, jealous article. The author frequently gets upset that someone else is getting more attention than another person the author favors instead. That's a classic give-away that the "this isn't a hit piece" is meant to be a hit piece (the preemptive denial approach).
The other standard-issue thing that this article entirely misses - and this occurs commonly in anti-VC type articles - is that the radical majority of new technology companies in the US do not rely on traditional VC. They're either self-funded, funded by friends & family or a mixture. The author seemingly never stopped to consider that the big money VC direction doesn't resonate with most people inside the US either, simply because it's not realistic that more than ~0.01% (20,000 every five years or so perhaps) of American business founders are going to ever have access to that.
My charitable tl;dr: Popular technology writing is biased toward people who are good writers and aren't necessarily the best technologists.
Ok, and? That's literally every field everywhere. People who communicate better or want others to listen to them are listened to more than those who can't or don't.
If those "others" wanted to spread their ideas then they would find a way to do it. But they don't so we can't do anything about that and read those who do. What is the suggestion here? I see nothing about inducing those "better" or "different" people to communicate more.
This is like being mad at people for watching big movies over indie films. One is available and accessible, the other isn't.
The point is to think for yourself, be skeptical, and don't conflate "popular" with any other attribute, like "wise" or "correct". Just because an idea or company is the most noisy doesn't mean it's the most interesting or valuable.
[Addendum: The other point is to recognize that we're all provincial, and just because something is popular in your circle doesn't even mean it's globally popular, much less wise or correct.]
I personally am shocked that this article condemning success bias and localized thought bubbles, two of the core characteristics of Hacker News, is unpopular in the comments on Hacker News. :|
We should all be so lucky to "fail" the way Basecamp has: a stable, opinionated, lucrative business people fall over themselves to work for.
I'm not sure the kind of success Asana has is the kind Basecamp is gunning for.
I also don't think that Basecamp and Trello are really comparable (I've used both a lot). Trello is more straightforward and flexible, like the Microsoft Excel of project management. Basecamp is more structured and professional; I would share a project with a client on Basecamp, but never on Trello.
Basecamp and Asana seem directly comparable. Asana seems to me like the VC-backed shoot-the-moon version of Basecamp.
This guy's Bitrix24 thing, though: wow. What isn't it? An online hard drive, a telephony thing, a mail server...
[+] [-] pkd|9 years ago|reply
More on the point, I think this article ignores a lot of things very conveniently to make the point that we should not listen to Jason Fried because "Basecamp is a failure".
This is wrong on two points:
Firstly what evidence does the author have that Basecamp is a failure? That Asana and Trello have more signups? But those tools are targetted at a very different audience than Basecamp. I know individuals who use Asana and Trello for personal management and I don't know anybody who uses Basecamp. This also ignores that Basecamp is not a VC backed startup. They have bootstrapped their business from the start. This is unlike Asana (VC) or Trello (product from Fog Creek). I mean, if some vague estimation of weekly/monthly signups is your idea of what makes a failure then you need to rethink your arguments.
Secondly, even if we assume that Basecamp is a failure, that doesn't mean that what Jason Fried has to say is invalid. I mean, by making this point the author has contradicted his own point that we should be listening to the less-heard voices out there. Jason Fried frequently has some very good points to make about running a business and people find value in his words. What is the problem? If you don't like it, don't take it. If you want Andrew Filev to be heard as much, ask him to write more! I also find it surprising that the author thinks that nobody challenges the views of established writers like pg, because I see people call him out all the time!
I wouldn't call this a hit piece but I have no idea what value I derive from this article apart from the author's bitterness.
[+] [-] ProxCoques|9 years ago|reply
Let's ignore that for the irrelevant ad hominem attack it is and get down the real issue here:
"If you don't like it, don't take it."
The implication of that (even if you don't mean it to be so) is that any old snake oil salesman or tub-thumper should be allowed to strut their stuff unhindered by criticism while leading their benighted flock up the garden path because it's up to them, and not you, to decide. Caveat emptor and all that.
Let me be the first to call that out as utter bullshit. Just because some swivel-eyed Valley tech preacher has some people swearing he healed their lumbago doesn't mean they deserve to avoid adverse examination. The author of the article in question here has every right - and indeed duty - to criticise Fried in this way if he has the information and the argument to do so. Let there be more of it, I say.
[+] [-] brandon272|9 years ago|reply
Others had weird notification systems with no ability to customize or fix what was bothering us about them, weird and terrible UI issues, etc.
So while I am not an enthusiastic Basecamp user, we are still using it. This is not to say that the competing products were "bad", but they at least weren't right for us.
I am also unclear how Basecamp is considered a "failure"? Because it's growth has slowed as supposedly proven by the fact that they have removed their weekly signup figure from their homepage and because of stats gleaned from app downloads? I don't buy it.
If Basecamp is a failure hopefully I will have created a product one day that is a similar failure!
[+] [-] criddell|9 years ago|reply
Basecamp makes quite a bit of money, employs a bunch of people, and (as far as I can tell) the people that work there are happy and productive. I hope I can fail as hard one day.
[+] [-] adventured|9 years ago|reply
The other standard-issue thing that this article entirely misses - and this occurs commonly in anti-VC type articles - is that the radical majority of new technology companies in the US do not rely on traditional VC. They're either self-funded, funded by friends & family or a mixture. The author seemingly never stopped to consider that the big money VC direction doesn't resonate with most people inside the US either, simply because it's not realistic that more than ~0.01% (20,000 every five years or so perhaps) of American business founders are going to ever have access to that.
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|9 years ago|reply
Ok, and? That's literally every field everywhere. People who communicate better or want others to listen to them are listened to more than those who can't or don't.
If those "others" wanted to spread their ideas then they would find a way to do it. But they don't so we can't do anything about that and read those who do. What is the suggestion here? I see nothing about inducing those "better" or "different" people to communicate more.
This is like being mad at people for watching big movies over indie films. One is available and accessible, the other isn't.
[+] [-] wrs|9 years ago|reply
[Addendum: The other point is to recognize that we're all provincial, and just because something is popular in your circle doesn't even mean it's globally popular, much less wise or correct.]
[+] [-] logandavis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackPoach|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tptacek|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure the kind of success Asana has is the kind Basecamp is gunning for.
I also don't think that Basecamp and Trello are really comparable (I've used both a lot). Trello is more straightforward and flexible, like the Microsoft Excel of project management. Basecamp is more structured and professional; I would share a project with a client on Basecamp, but never on Trello.
Basecamp and Asana seem directly comparable. Asana seems to me like the VC-backed shoot-the-moon version of Basecamp.
This guy's Bitrix24 thing, though: wow. What isn't it? An online hard drive, a telephony thing, a mail server...
[+] [-] amyunus|9 years ago|reply
Second, I think author wants to introduce us to Bitrix. Well, now I know another Basecamp competitor.
Well, it is author opinion on Bitrix side. But Jason also has outstanding opinion by running the company until now.
[+] [-] jccc|9 years ago|reply
He might have gotten those things out of the way by not using that headline.
[+] [-] XJOKOLAT|9 years ago|reply
tl:dr, Move along, this isn't article you're looking for.