Goodbye, CSS-Tricks(geoffgraham.me)
geoffgraham.me
Goodbye, CSS-Tricks
https://geoffgraham.me/goodbye-css-tricks/
160 comments
> "A Complete Guide to Flexbox" is probably my most referenced article.
I'll just put it out there that web.dev is becoming a more and more awesome resource to learn web technologies. Their page on flexbox is very detailed:
https://web.dev/learn/css/flexbox/
I'll just put it out there that web.dev is becoming a more and more awesome resource to learn web technologies. Their page on flexbox is very detailed:
https://web.dev/learn/css/flexbox/
web.dev is a resource for learning how to write code for Chrome.
There are entire articles about Chrome-only "standards" with barely a footnote about how controversial the standards are and that e.g. Mozilla considers them harmful on their standards positions site: https://web.dev/signed-exchanges/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ha00dSGKmjoEh2mRiG8FIA5s...
web.dev itself should be considered harmful. It is not impartial, and does not equip web developers with a good understanding of what is currently supported in a range of modern rendering/JS engines in 2023. A rendering engine monoculture is a bad thing for everyone and that's what resources like this one are encouraging.
There are entire articles about Chrome-only "standards" with barely a footnote about how controversial the standards are and that e.g. Mozilla considers them harmful on their standards positions site: https://web.dev/signed-exchanges/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ha00dSGKmjoEh2mRiG8FIA5s...
web.dev itself should be considered harmful. It is not impartial, and does not equip web developers with a good understanding of what is currently supported in a range of modern rendering/JS engines in 2023. A rendering engine monoculture is a bad thing for everyone and that's what resources like this one are encouraging.
Mozilla prioritizes security far more than possibility, and that's been an extremely sad thing to see. If a user "installs" a PWA, that app should have some chance to have something at least semi-competitive with a native app. But Mozilla is terrified, sells a story about how horrible it would be, how apocalyptic having ambient light sensors or midi or webusb support would be. Mozilla has become proud of being anti-featureful.
There's room for disagreement about what the future of the web should look like. A ton of people are incredibly loud about not wanting the web to grow, have opinions that the existing organic growth is all bad and horrible & the worst thig that's happened to computing. I happen to disagree, but I recognize that desire, and I think factoring in the tension here is important.
What's immensely important to me in talking about a site like web.dev is recognizing what is represented now. If there were other progressive browsers that were interested in trying & expanding, your caution would perhaps be deserved. Web.dev could be an unfair mono-culture. But right now there's no second peer that actually wants to expand the web. So web.dev is fine, represents the only voice of hope and possibility the world wide web has. No one else is playing that game, alas.
There's room for disagreement about what the future of the web should look like. A ton of people are incredibly loud about not wanting the web to grow, have opinions that the existing organic growth is all bad and horrible & the worst thig that's happened to computing. I happen to disagree, but I recognize that desire, and I think factoring in the tension here is important.
What's immensely important to me in talking about a site like web.dev is recognizing what is represented now. If there were other progressive browsers that were interested in trying & expanding, your caution would perhaps be deserved. Web.dev could be an unfair mono-culture. But right now there's no second peer that actually wants to expand the web. So web.dev is fine, represents the only voice of hope and possibility the world wide web has. No one else is playing that game, alas.
PWA is one of the worst ideas in the history of the web.
It is something that only Google could love because they can hire 1000 people to build a Rube Goldberg machine to do the most trivial things.
Push notifications? No thanks. We all get too much spam. It’s bad enough that it spams you with a spamification popup even if you say ‘Spam? No thanks!’
That whole service worker thing is insane, particularly considering there is no completely reliable storage service for the front end. The more you know about http the more you know there are edge cases that can and will bite you. Back in the late 1990s there were systems like Netscape Netcaster that worked with the caching mechanism built into the browser and despite having complete access to the browser code, Google went ahead anyway and built a Rube Goldberg machine that makes you build a Rube Goldberg machine if you want to try to build an application that tries to work offline.
Then when users say ‘No Thanks!’ and the industry says ‘No Thanks!’ the monopolist Google says they are being oppressed.
It is something that only Google could love because they can hire 1000 people to build a Rube Goldberg machine to do the most trivial things.
Push notifications? No thanks. We all get too much spam. It’s bad enough that it spams you with a spamification popup even if you say ‘Spam? No thanks!’
That whole service worker thing is insane, particularly considering there is no completely reliable storage service for the front end. The more you know about http the more you know there are edge cases that can and will bite you. Back in the late 1990s there were systems like Netscape Netcaster that worked with the caching mechanism built into the browser and despite having complete access to the browser code, Google went ahead anyway and built a Rube Goldberg machine that makes you build a Rube Goldberg machine if you want to try to build an application that tries to work offline.
Then when users say ‘No Thanks!’ and the industry says ‘No Thanks!’ the monopolist Google says they are being oppressed.
Here's a basic feature that seems to be unimplemented by Google, how can we change the URL for what we see on the "new tab" screen on Chrome?
That is a matter of the chrome around the page. It has nothing to do with the web platform & web page's capabilities.
There are definitely WebExtensions that give you what you want. The extensibility of the user agent is a supreme superpower that is almost entirely absent in the rest of computing.
There are definitely WebExtensions that give you what you want. The extensibility of the user agent is a supreme superpower that is almost entirely absent in the rest of computing.
I'd be happy for you to point me towards them, I don't believe they exist.
They do exist for Firefox.
They do exist for Firefox.
A mono-browser-engine culture is no more harmful than a mono-kernel culture. It's worked great for Linux (despite the existence of POSIX) and work likely work great for browsers too.
Unfortunately there is too much meat on the bone and commercial interests would never cede that power to a community effort like Linux.
Browsers could still be dime a dozen but with a shared engine core we could have results instead of bickering over standards and implementation differences.
Unfortunately there is too much meat on the bone and commercial interests would never cede that power to a community effort like Linux.
Browsers could still be dime a dozen but with a shared engine core we could have results instead of bickering over standards and implementation differences.
yes it is, we've already seen this with the retiring of webmanifest v2. a kernel is less commercially interesting, and doesn't allow you to screw over your users for personal gain in the same way.
That wouldn't happen under community leadership ala Linux.
Linux pretty much never breaks userspace.
Instead what you are seeing is the exact problem of overriding commercial interests and no restraint on individual parties because they all have their own little fiefdom to rule over.
A single browser engine wouldn't be the problem, it would be a great boon in many ways. The problem has been and remains that there is too much commercial bullshit getting pushed down into the browser engine rather than being matters of porcelain exactly because there is so much resistance to a fully FLOSS core.
Apple and Google are both to blame here for different reasons. Apple wants browser engines to mostly suck, especially on iOS. Google wants browser engines to be good but not be capable of restricting telemetry or blocking adverts.
However neither of those concerns require having their own engine, proof being that they were both able to share Webkit for a period of time.
Mozilla isn't blameless in this. They push the whole standardisation angle in a desperate plea for relevance while wasting resources on non-browser projects. Their efforts to "protect standardisation" cost us things like WebSQL, created a massive rift during the HTML5 and XHTML years and resulted in relentless addition of complexity.
I'm not saying they haven't done good, if anything I think Mozilla generally speaking has done the most good but they too have contributed to the clusterfuck.
Ironically MS has done very little wrong since the IE10 days, they basically threw in the towel and just use Blink now which is good (minus Google doing shitty things with it).
If we could end up in a place where Blink is developed in a similar way to Linux that -would- be good. It's generally the most advanced engine would be easiest to adapt the Webkit improvements that Safari has made and is already used in many other browser porcelains.
I don't see a way there yet but my point isn't that a path exists but that an end point potentially exists.
Google Bad, etc is true but if that could be fixed a mono-engine situation would be drastically better overall. Waste less time, less incompatibility problems, better web for everyone. (which is why Apple would never be on board but whatever).
Linux pretty much never breaks userspace.
Instead what you are seeing is the exact problem of overriding commercial interests and no restraint on individual parties because they all have their own little fiefdom to rule over.
A single browser engine wouldn't be the problem, it would be a great boon in many ways. The problem has been and remains that there is too much commercial bullshit getting pushed down into the browser engine rather than being matters of porcelain exactly because there is so much resistance to a fully FLOSS core.
Apple and Google are both to blame here for different reasons. Apple wants browser engines to mostly suck, especially on iOS. Google wants browser engines to be good but not be capable of restricting telemetry or blocking adverts.
However neither of those concerns require having their own engine, proof being that they were both able to share Webkit for a period of time.
Mozilla isn't blameless in this. They push the whole standardisation angle in a desperate plea for relevance while wasting resources on non-browser projects. Their efforts to "protect standardisation" cost us things like WebSQL, created a massive rift during the HTML5 and XHTML years and resulted in relentless addition of complexity.
I'm not saying they haven't done good, if anything I think Mozilla generally speaking has done the most good but they too have contributed to the clusterfuck.
Ironically MS has done very little wrong since the IE10 days, they basically threw in the towel and just use Blink now which is good (minus Google doing shitty things with it).
If we could end up in a place where Blink is developed in a similar way to Linux that -would- be good. It's generally the most advanced engine would be easiest to adapt the Webkit improvements that Safari has made and is already used in many other browser porcelains.
I don't see a way there yet but my point isn't that a path exists but that an end point potentially exists.
Google Bad, etc is true but if that could be fixed a mono-engine situation would be drastically better overall. Waste less time, less incompatibility problems, better web for everyone. (which is why Apple would never be on board but whatever).
WebSQL, like a lot of the stuff Google pushes, wasn't a standard. It was an implementation. And one that raised a lot of questions, like will it track with SQLite or be frozen in time except for security fixes?
With only a single implementation there are risks, like everyone gets owned by the same bug or oversight. In nature mono crops can be devastated by a single virus or invasive species.
With only a single implementation there are risks, like everyone gets owned by the same bug or oversight. In nature mono crops can be devastated by a single virus or invasive species.
Exactly. Linux isn't a standard, it's an implementation and that comes with many benefits. Some downsides also like you noted but generally speaking more good than bad.
I prefer a world where we can have WebSQL over a world where it's killed because Mozilla says that we need to build a new implementation of SQLite just because standardisation.
Obviously lots of people feel differently but my opinion is that standards don't really matter that much when every browser chooses to implement each standard slightly differently.
I prefer a world where we can have WebSQL over a world where it's killed because Mozilla says that we need to build a new implementation of SQLite just because standardisation.
Obviously lots of people feel differently but my opinion is that standards don't really matter that much when every browser chooses to implement each standard slightly differently.
well, the web needs to be backwards compatible, basically indefinitely, once something has been around long enough to proliferate. so it's generally troubling to just pull in some third party library and go "I call it WebSQL", because you can't make any guarantees about how it will change, whether project policies will change, or if it will be abandoned entirely. For something to be a part of web standards places constaints on that thing, permanently. And I would wager to say that SQLite never agreed to or promised to those constraints, they are their own project and have enough to worry about. So it got the axe.
To add to this, Linus is obsessive about not breaking userspace
I find the CSS-Tricks page clearer and more concise. Maybe it’s because I want a reference and not a tutorial.
But that site is owned by Google :(
And MDN is owned by Mozilla :-) Between the two of them, I think we've got ourselves covered.
It’s more than web.dev simply being owned by Google, at times the site feels like content marketing for Chrome and not just a resource to learn about web development. I’ve seen them post multiple articles about the latest Chrome-only updates, while I’ve never seen MDN promote content that only focuses on Firefox. Not to say MDN has never done that, but at least to me, web.dev has a definite Chrome bent that you wouldn’t expect from the way the site initially presents itself.
> I’ve never seen MDN promote content that only focuses on Firefox
They do, which I think is totally fine: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
They do, which I think is totally fine: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...
Fair point but this is also directly labeled as stuff. Most of the Chrome-only stuff on web.dev barely tells you that. It is at most a footnote that this isn't available in most browsers and that the other browsers may actually be opposed to implementing the Chrome proposal.
100% is content marketing for chrome
Yes MDN is excellent
That page is much worse than the one from CSS tricks. That Google site is a real site for sore eyes.
CSS Tricks was mostly defined by Chris. When he sold it off to Digital Ocean and left, there was a noticeable change in quality. I'm surprised they didn't either shelve it soon after or turn it into a pure marketing vehicle.
> When he sold it off to Digital Ocean and left, there was a noticeable change in quality.
Yes, absolutely.
Yes, absolutely.
Me too! I remember looking at that page endlessly in around 2014 when my then boss decided that flexbox was in wide enough use that we could use it.
The diagrams made it extra useful.
The diagrams made it extra useful.
One of my go-to links has always been “When to use target="_blank"” https://css-tricks.com/use-target_blank/ I'd recently gotten a feed reader set up and CSS-Tricks was one of the first things added as I trust the writers and insights over the years.
The advice about adding a `rel` attr is outdated, modern browsers will do this by default with `_blank`
https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/4078
https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/4078
omg same!! i have visited this page soo many times the first 6 months of my first web dev job.
Really sad to see this, hoping all the best for OP
Really sad to see this, hoping all the best for OP
I'm still opening this up whenever I have to do anything with flex.
Just saved it offline.
For all of the folks worried about the future of CSS Tricks, this is why licensing matters!
I spent most of the past decade producing (as a writer, editor, and community manager) tutorial and other technical content for a large software company. Because the company I worked for values open source principles, every single article I ever wrote for them was licensed under CC BY-SA or a similar license. If the sites I worked on disappeared tomorrow, I would be free to republish them on a new home on the web, and more importantly, to continue to keep them up to date. I don't work there any more, and it's such a relief not to have to worry about a lawsuit from a former employer just to be able to reuse my own work.
I spent most of the past decade producing (as a writer, editor, and community manager) tutorial and other technical content for a large software company. Because the company I worked for values open source principles, every single article I ever wrote for them was licensed under CC BY-SA or a similar license. If the sites I worked on disappeared tomorrow, I would be free to republish them on a new home on the web, and more importantly, to continue to keep them up to date. I don't work there any more, and it's such a relief not to have to worry about a lawsuit from a former employer just to be able to reuse my own work.
Are the articles on CSS Tricks under a libre license? I can't find any mention of it, though I haven't searched in depth, so it's proprietary?
For the record, their code on CodePen looks to be MIT licensed (though CodePen requires a login). For example, Infinite Burger is MIT licensed [0].
[0] https://codepen.io/team/css-tricks/pen/mNBrNG#_=_
For the record, their code on CodePen looks to be MIT licensed (though CodePen requires a login). For example, Infinite Burger is MIT licensed [0].
[0] https://codepen.io/team/css-tricks/pen/mNBrNG#_=_
Seems, the license allows for copying [1]. Maybe worth rescuing them.
[1] https://css-tricks.com/license/
[1] https://css-tricks.com/license/
I'm actually amazed this license is still there post-acquisition, and perhaps equally amazed this license didn't tank the acquisition in the first place.
this is why licensing matters!
Yes. And it's also why any resource you use more than once should be submitted to archive.org — just in case!
https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://css-tric...
Yes. And it's also why any resource you use more than once should be submitted to archive.org — just in case!
https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/https://css-tric...
It's very plausible that this is the first step of migrating CSS-Tricks to DigitalOcean Tutorials. They've had enough time to see how well CSS-Tricks traffic is converting into customers, and perhaps there is a strong decline for the past couple of months, but this is entirely my own speculation.
Also, in their Q4 Report [0] they are using this wording,
"Added thousands of tutorials, guides and educational content through the acquisition of CSS-Tricks and JournalDev."
Back when DO acquired Scotch.io, they only migrated the best / most popular tutorials, and I wouldn't be surprised this is the fate for CSS-Tricks also. I think there are thousands of published pages on CSS-Tricks, many of which already overlap with what DO has written over the years, and on top of that - it would involve some serious work to migrate everything.
Again, these are just my thoughts on it, but why else would they just kick Geoff off the team like that?
[0]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230215005423/en/Dig...
Also, in their Q4 Report [0] they are using this wording,
"Added thousands of tutorials, guides and educational content through the acquisition of CSS-Tricks and JournalDev."
Back when DO acquired Scotch.io, they only migrated the best / most popular tutorials, and I wouldn't be surprised this is the fate for CSS-Tricks also. I think there are thousands of published pages on CSS-Tricks, many of which already overlap with what DO has written over the years, and on top of that - it would involve some serious work to migrate everything.
Again, these are just my thoughts on it, but why else would they just kick Geoff off the team like that?
[0]: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230215005423/en/Dig...
This is not the case here. The teams responsible for DigitalOcean’s tutorials were completely removed in this round of layoffs. Not only is is unlikely CSS Tricks won’t be migrated, there may never be another new tutorial again.
Does that mean their Write for DOnations program is canned?
If this is true then I really am screwed. I have an article due for publication under that program, it had already passed the tech test, just a review of the actual text was needed. Angry because my article was with them for over 60 days tch.
I sent them emails asking for updates 4days ago and yesterday, no response.
I've mostly given up now, but I still kind of hold out hope, that $300 payout would've changed this Nigerian's life...even if only for just a while
I sent them emails asking for updates 4days ago and yesterday, no response.
I've mostly given up now, but I still kind of hold out hope, that $300 payout would've changed this Nigerian's life...even if only for just a while
A couple of places you can get paid for FOSS tech documentation work btw:
https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn
The FOSSjobs site has a category for editors/writers too, not all of them seem to be related to the category though.
https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs/editors/
https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ https://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn
The FOSSjobs site has a category for editors/writers too, not all of them seem to be related to the category though.
https://www.fossjobs.net/jobs/editors/
Thank you, I will check them out.
Also the FOSSjobs resources page might have links to FOSS employers that have documentation jobs.
https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
They've had enough time to see how well CSS-Tricks traffic is converting into customers, and perhaps there is a strong decline for the past couple of months, but this is entirely my own speculation.
You might be right, but I'd hope they weren't looking at it that way. Content sites like that are a long play. I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand. A site like CSS Tricks is so valuable in the long term rather than for short term conversions.
You might be right, but I'd hope they weren't looking at it that way. Content sites like that are a long play. I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand. A site like CSS Tricks is so valuable in the long term rather than for short term conversions.
> I've encountered lots of people who seem to have extra trust for DigitalOcean because of their (admittedly good) content and while they might not have directly "converted" from a specific article, it has hugely helped DO's brand
Umm, I am a customer of DigitalOcean, have several production workloads with them, yet until reading this article today I had no idea they had "content" of this type.
Umm, I am a customer of DigitalOcean, have several production workloads with them, yet until reading this article today I had no idea they had "content" of this type.
Okay, that makes one of you? I am exactly the person GP is describing — I ended up reading a lot of their tutorials and when I needed a VPS, I decided to go with DigitalOcean because I already trusted the brand.
That's fair enough, but also why any larger company should have a broad strategy for marketing and sales as there are a lot of routes that customers take. I once ended up in a multi year contract with a company because I ended up in their IRC channel and I liked it. Did they get most of their customers that way? I imagine not.
That said, DO is pretty well known in developer circles for its thousands of tutorials (less so for its ownership of CSS Tricks which is very recent) but that is certainly not universal.
That said, DO is pretty well known in developer circles for its thousands of tutorials (less so for its ownership of CSS Tricks which is very recent) but that is certainly not universal.
I'm pretty baffled by this layoff wave. I assumed sites like CSS-Tricks never turned a profit, but were a loss-leader (marketing expenditure) for a company like DigitalOcean. I still have to assume that's some of the best marketing they have. Cutting your marketing's golden goose is less strategic retrenchment, more battlefield amputation.
I've used their flexbox guide for years and had no idea DigitalOcean was involved. Not sure how good marketing that is. The
DO only acquired CSS Tricks very recently and have been quite gentle in terms of the branding there (other than in the emails where a lot of DO links have appeared in my experience).
Yeah, I also wonder this is a sign of a change in strategy. DigitalOcean was always developer friendly. Maybe they want to double down and start selling direct to enterprises. (I'm out of the loop, maybe that's already happening)
It's pretty hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone running a company that's steadily losing relevance, but personally I'd double down on the esoteric shit like CSS-Tricks, and then rebrand, as opposed to chopping off limbs and becoming even more B2B-ish and inaccessible to the next startup looking for a cloud service. What is their moat? Widen whatever they have. Jettisoning the most popular property sure seems like a preliminary to the executives cashing out.
> I'm pretty baffled by this layoff wave.
There is good evidence that layoffs conform to social contagion.[1] In other words, layoffs are trendy right now.
[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la...
There is good evidence that layoffs conform to social contagion.[1] In other words, layoffs are trendy right now.
[1] https://news.stanford.edu/2022/12/05/explains-recent-tech-la...
[deleted]
The headline makes it sound like the website is shutting down. It's just one guy leaving the staff and saying "goodbye".
Not one guy, the guy who run it and was acquired with it, therefore a shutdown lurks in the future.
Chris Coyier built css tricks, ran css tricks, and sold css tricks to digital ocean. Geoff was an employee.
Chris built it. Geoff was the chief editor and had been with CSS Tricks for half its lifetime (i.e. seven years) when Chris sold it to Digital Ocean and left. Pretending he was just "an employee" is seriously underselling what this layoff means.
Yes, Chris leaving caused more damage to CSS Tricks than Geoff being laid off. But Geoff being laid off is the killing blow to what CSS Tricks used to be. I'm not the first person to say this: https://zellwk.com/blog/spirit-of-css-tricks/
Yes, Chris leaving caused more damage to CSS Tricks than Geoff being laid off. But Geoff being laid off is the killing blow to what CSS Tricks used to be. I'm not the first person to say this: https://zellwk.com/blog/spirit-of-css-tricks/
I can't predict the future like you seem to be able to, so I'll stand by my assessment of a misleading headline. I can count at least two comments in here that were written under the impression that the website is shutting down for good.
Layperson here and I didn't look exhaustively but DigitalOcean seems to only be announcing 11% layoff publicly through investor relations documents[1], IE the legal minimum requirement (sarbanes-oxley etc) which seems a bit cold:
> Channel Futures reached out to DigitalOcean for insight into any changes on the channel side but the company only pointed us to its Securities and Exchange Filing[2] announcing the restructuring. [3]
Like the McSweeney's satire [4] but without even a blog post.
[1] https://investors.digitalocean.com/news/news-details/2023/Di...
[2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001582961/1cb092a...
[3] https://www.channelfutures.com/cloud-2/cloud-layoffs-job-cut...
[4] https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-ha...
> Channel Futures reached out to DigitalOcean for insight into any changes on the channel side but the company only pointed us to its Securities and Exchange Filing[2] announcing the restructuring. [3]
Like the McSweeney's satire [4] but without even a blog post.
[1] https://investors.digitalocean.com/news/news-details/2023/Di...
[2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001582961/1cb092a...
[3] https://www.channelfutures.com/cloud-2/cloud-layoffs-job-cut...
[4] https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/macroeconomic-changes-ha...
They probably learned from all the awful tone deaf "we fired a bunch of human resources" blog posts that it is best to just say nothing at all. There's no good way for a bunch of rich executives who are literally incapable of understanding the lives of non-rich people to pretend they care.
> There's no good way for a bunch of rich executives who are literally incapable of understanding the lives of non-rich people to pretend they care.
“It’s one new job your concierge has to find you. What could it cost, two millions?”
“It’s one new job your concierge has to find you. What could it cost, two millions?”
That's a google-whack. Catchy phrase... it sounded so nice I for sure thought it was from a movie or something.
Kiro(3)
> a bunch of rich executives
Before we grab the pitchforks and guillotines, exactly how "rich" are DigitalOcean's executives?
Before we grab the pitchforks and guillotines, exactly how "rich" are DigitalOcean's executives?
In 2021 the CEO earned 82 million total compensation according to SEC proxy statement[1], then about 7-8 million for the next two named execs.
[1] https://s27.q4cdn.com/619704647/files/doc_financials/2021/ar...
[1] https://s27.q4cdn.com/619704647/files/doc_financials/2021/ar...
A million is not what it used to be.
Jokes aside, I was surprised to learn that there are 24 million millionaires in the U.S. that's more than 10% the working-age population. It's still a minority of course, and probably most of them are people who saved enough throughout their whole career (while here we were talking about people who made multiple millions every year), but still I found it interesting
Jokes aside, I was surprised to learn that there are 24 million millionaires in the U.S. that's more than 10% the working-age population. It's still a minority of course, and probably most of them are people who saved enough throughout their whole career (while here we were talking about people who made multiple millions every year), but still I found it interesting
There's a difference between having a net worth of a million dollars, ten million dollars and a hundred million dollars. There's also a world of a difference between having a million dollars and making millions of dollars every year.
If you own your house, you can easily be a "millionaire" based on the total cost of ownership but that doesn't mean you have anywhere near the disposable income or institutional power as an exec making upwards of 5 million dollars per year.
If you own your house, you can easily be a "millionaire" based on the total cost of ownership but that doesn't mean you have anywhere near the disposable income or institutional power as an exec making upwards of 5 million dollars per year.
You can be paying a mortgage on a house worth 100,000 dollars, have a dead-end job, live paycheck to paycheck, with no more than 1000 dollars in savings, and still count as a net-worth millionaire.
No you can't, that's not what "net-worth millionaire" is.
Net worth is assets minus liabilities.
If you had no savings or investments and a $100,000 house with a $99,000 mortgage your net worth would be $1,000, not a million dollars.
Net worth is assets minus liabilities.
If you had no savings or investments and a $100,000 house with a $99,000 mortgage your net worth would be $1,000, not a million dollars.
Huh? Wouldn't that put your net-worth at $101,000 minus the amount owing on your mortgage?
I suppose some agencies count your ability to generate revenue?
No. Networth is your current value, not future.
No they don't.
Not mine, no. I have no house.
I always knew the USA was rich, but then I dug into the numbers. It’s actually staggering. It’s not really even about GDP per capita. What matters is accumulated wealth and existing infrastructure/social investments. Check out this report (https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...) net wealth of 560k per adult in North America, vs 180k in Europe, 77k in China, all the way down to 8.5k in Africa.
Even the median wealth in the USA is 94k per adult, vs 26k for China and Europe.
Not only is the USA ahead of the game by a ridiculous amount, they’re making progress faster.
And when I travelled there and to other rich countries, all this was confirmed again; in the material weatlh, but also culturally.
The numbers are in, and I think we can call a winner in the economic systems contest.
Even the median wealth in the USA is 94k per adult, vs 26k for China and Europe.
Not only is the USA ahead of the game by a ridiculous amount, they’re making progress faster.
And when I travelled there and to other rich countries, all this was confirmed again; in the material weatlh, but also culturally.
The numbers are in, and I think we can call a winner in the economic systems contest.
You're doing some heavy cherry-picking, net MEAN wealth is 560k in the U.S, 180 in Europe-aggregate, >400k in Denmark, >300k in France, Norway, Belgium, ...
And net median wealth is 93k in the U.S, 267k in Belgium, >100k in Spain, Italy, France, ...
As far as I remember, the American median salary was closer to 50k, Germany close to 45, France close to 40k. Don't have the numbers on hand, but off the top of my head.
As far as I remember, the American median salary was closer to 50k, Germany close to 45, France close to 40k. Don't have the numbers on hand, but off the top of my head.
Why off the top of your head? Look at the report. My numbers come straight out of the comparison tables.
My numbers also come straight from the comparison tables, the point is if you pick different numbers you paint a very different picture.
There are no salary numbers in your report about wealth, which is why I cited those from memory. If you want a source you can look it up, it'll change slightly depending on how you measure them (for example adjusting for PPP). Either way the broad point is that the salary numbers paint the same picture as the wealth numbers you omitted: People aren't dirt poor in Europe and walking on streets of gold in the U.S.
There are no salary numbers in your report about wealth, which is why I cited those from memory. If you want a source you can look it up, it'll change slightly depending on how you measure them (for example adjusting for PPP). Either way the broad point is that the salary numbers paint the same picture as the wealth numbers you omitted: People aren't dirt poor in Europe and walking on streets of gold in the U.S.
It’s the same picture. You are cherrypicking by isolating rich EU countries from the rest of Europe and comparing to the entire USA.
You can compare Spain and Germany to NY and CA, and Mississippi to Romania, and the same pattern holds true.
This is all borne out if you actually go and live in these places for a month or so. Life in the States is hugely comfortable and luxurious compared to everywhere else.
You can compare Spain and Germany to NY and CA, and Mississippi to Romania, and the same pattern holds true.
This is all borne out if you actually go and live in these places for a month or so. Life in the States is hugely comfortable and luxurious compared to everywhere else.
I'm comparing countries to countries. France, Germany, Spain, ... haven't stopped being countries with entirely separate populations, legal systems, cultures, histories, industries and so on... just because we formed an economic union. Every decade we include more states yet that doesn't mean the living standards and economic output of those rich countries magically average out lower than they were. When Estonia joined in 2004, for example, the lives of Spanish citizens didn't magically worsen compared to the U.S, even though the median European salary instantly lowered through the addition of a lower-wealth country to the Union.
Your thesis is that there is a gigantic gulf between the U.S and the next closest country and that no one else on earth comes even close, I can give you entire countries which are of similar levels of wealth, and many countries with less inequality and higher median wealth (20 in fact).
I've lived and worked all over Europe and in the states, for years, it never struck me that life in the U.S was any more luxurious than in a lot of other European countries.
Your thesis is that there is a gigantic gulf between the U.S and the next closest country and that no one else on earth comes even close, I can give you entire countries which are of similar levels of wealth, and many countries with less inequality and higher median wealth (20 in fact).
I've lived and worked all over Europe and in the states, for years, it never struck me that life in the U.S was any more luxurious than in a lot of other European countries.
“Entire country” is a word that encompasses Andorra, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Portugal, all the way up in size to India, USA, Canada, China, Russia.
Your second point does not reflect my experience. The average American simply has more and better stuff and a nicer house.
Edit: my point is not that Europe is some sort of hellhole and that the States have no problems. I’m saying this: the common focus is on GDP per capita or even salaries, but more significant than that is wealth per capita, and the US has the most by a very large margin
Your second point does not reflect my experience. The average American simply has more and better stuff and a nicer house.
Edit: my point is not that Europe is some sort of hellhole and that the States have no problems. I’m saying this: the common focus is on GDP per capita or even salaries, but more significant than that is wealth per capita, and the US has the most by a very large margin
The values you're quoting are wealth per adult, which is a mean, not a median, and therefore very useful to Credit Suisse in context and almost entirely useless in the current discussion.
To get a better feeling for how things look in terms of the actual humans involved, a median isn't bad, or a percentile based distribution, or you can e.g. cut off the top and bottom 10 or 20% and then do some sort of analysis based on that.
'Mean net worth' is only useful for a very specific set of situations - it's also why you often get charities talking about 'look how tiny the net worth here is' but that includes people with debt having negative net worth, which drags the numbers downwards in just as distortionary a way as the richest people in the US are dragging the numbers you're using upwards.
Of course, it makes great propaganda for the charities, and they're not -strictly- lying - and Credit Suisse aren't lying at all, they're presenting total wealth by country and providing the 'per person' number to help gauge that information, not for use as remotely representitive.
However if you keep scrolling down the document, you'll find Table 2 provides the median - and lo and behold because the mean for the US is skewed by the small (compared to total population) number of extremely rich people, the US in No. 18 by median wealth as opposed to No. 2 by mean.
Statistics are great fun but you do have to be careful to apply the right -sort- of statistics for the purpose you have in mind.
To get a better feeling for how things look in terms of the actual humans involved, a median isn't bad, or a percentile based distribution, or you can e.g. cut off the top and bottom 10 or 20% and then do some sort of analysis based on that.
'Mean net worth' is only useful for a very specific set of situations - it's also why you often get charities talking about 'look how tiny the net worth here is' but that includes people with debt having negative net worth, which drags the numbers downwards in just as distortionary a way as the richest people in the US are dragging the numbers you're using upwards.
Of course, it makes great propaganda for the charities, and they're not -strictly- lying - and Credit Suisse aren't lying at all, they're presenting total wealth by country and providing the 'per person' number to help gauge that information, not for use as remotely representitive.
However if you keep scrolling down the document, you'll find Table 2 provides the median - and lo and behold because the mean for the US is skewed by the small (compared to total population) number of extremely rich people, the US in No. 18 by median wealth as opposed to No. 2 by mean.
Statistics are great fun but you do have to be careful to apply the right -sort- of statistics for the purpose you have in mind.
I gave mean and median
This is indeed a remarkable number, I read 30m millionaires some place else.
Do they count stocks which are held but not cashed out and do they count houses which are subject to mortgages?
If no, then that is a truly impressive number, I think even Switzerland does not come close by percentage.
Do they count stocks which are held but not cashed out and do they count houses which are subject to mortgages?
If no, then that is a truly impressive number, I think even Switzerland does not come close by percentage.
They certainly count home equity and stocks, which could easily have doubled in the last 5 years. But none of that is very liquid. Salaries have been losing value due to inflation - there are plenty of millionaires living paycheck to paycheck.
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I'd guess baby boomers who own homes probably account for most of that population
And if he were "laid off" he would get a years salary, bonus, and his health insurance would be covered by DO for a year.
Does it really matter? Even $10 million net worth is enough to not worry about most of the things that the average employee thinks about.
Even $1 million is enough to not worry about those things, at which point we're in the range of what many tech workers working for hot startups or big tech have made in the past couple years.
They're often not saying who is being laid off. A bunch of engineers? Sales & marketing? I doubt that any of these companies (besides Amazon) even employ significant amount of low-wage staff, they get those via a staffing agency to avoid benefits and public responsibility for mistreatment.
They're often not saying who is being laid off. A bunch of engineers? Sales & marketing? I doubt that any of these companies (besides Amazon) even employ significant amount of low-wage staff, they get those via a staffing agency to avoid benefits and public responsibility for mistreatment.
> many tech workers working for hot startups or big tech have made in the past couple years
I can guarantee you no tech writer has made $1 million in salary or compensation in two years.
I can guarantee you no tech writer has made $1 million in salary or compensation in two years.
Probably, though the founder of CSS-Tricks probably did when he sold it. But many on this site are SWE and they maybe didn't make a million in the past two years, but in the past 5 years, the number will be significant.
I assume DO didn't have 11% technical writers. These numbers are hard to judge if you don't know who got laid off.
I assume DO didn't have 11% technical writers. These numbers are hard to judge if you don't know who got laid off.
Their tech writers were under their marketing team, and the CMO got exited as part of this. At least one tech writing team got laid off.[1] Their opt-in list includes six technical writers or editors out of about 152, but I've seen more writers announce on LinkedIn than are listed here. (Engineering took it on the chin, 73 listed.)[2]
DO had invested a lot over the last few years into expanding its technical content library as a SEO strategy. They seem to have completely backed out of that investment.
Coyier's $4M exit was nice, sure. Built on 15 years of work, though, alongside his primary job being a developer/designer and CodePen founder who also wrote, not as a full-time writer.
Still standing by my guarantee that no technical writer here got north of $1M of salary or compensation for two years of work. Not even close. If any got north of $500k they're both role models and were probably overpaid for the market.
1: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bphogan_hey-all-a-whole-bunch...
2: http://do.co/sharks
DO had invested a lot over the last few years into expanding its technical content library as a SEO strategy. They seem to have completely backed out of that investment.
Coyier's $4M exit was nice, sure. Built on 15 years of work, though, alongside his primary job being a developer/designer and CodePen founder who also wrote, not as a full-time writer.
Still standing by my guarantee that no technical writer here got north of $1M of salary or compensation for two years of work. Not even close. If any got north of $500k they're both role models and were probably overpaid for the market.
1: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bphogan_hey-all-a-whole-bunch...
2: http://do.co/sharks
Ok, we could add “or the hedge funds, VCs, that otherwise control the funds” to be more complete?
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I think I might have to pursue laying off digital ocean lol. I only pay them $6/mo for my container but they sound like a shitty company now.
Can you elaborate on the minimum legal requirement that you mentioned?
Sure - again I'm a layperson so take this with a grain of salt but in USA the Sarbanes-Oxley act[1], one of the pieces of fallout from Enron and other corporate scandals, has various requirements for accurate and fulsome reporting of information to investors in mandated financial documents, earnings reports and SEC filings and whatnot, for publicly traded companies. Basically don't do Enron.
One penalty involved is personal criminal liability for executives - for certain executive roles, if they unknowingly make a serious mistake, they face a $1 million dollar fine and up to 10 years in prison, and if they knowingly make a serious mistake, it's $5 million and 20 years. [2]
Hence, executives have a strong motivation to ensure nothing is misrepresented, left out, or wrong in their investor relations documents.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes–Oxley_Act
[2] https://www.diligent.com/insights/grc/sox-penalties/
One penalty involved is personal criminal liability for executives - for certain executive roles, if they unknowingly make a serious mistake, they face a $1 million dollar fine and up to 10 years in prison, and if they knowingly make a serious mistake, it's $5 million and 20 years. [2]
Hence, executives have a strong motivation to ensure nothing is misrepresented, left out, or wrong in their investor relations documents.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes–Oxley_Act
[2] https://www.diligent.com/insights/grc/sox-penalties/
Excuse me, is it really the norm to just cut off people who are being let go, without the opportunity to say goodbye to their former colleagues? In my country it is 2 months notice by law...
Majority of the US is at-will employment, meaning you can be let go or quit at any time with no need to give notice. The only difference is we were conditioned to believe that we as employees to "not burn bridges" must give at least 2 weeks notice, but companies never give notice to you, just wake up one day and you're no longer employed.
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Yes, it's the norm. Typically they'll call a mandatory all-hands meeting (or a mandatory meeting with the laid off people with HR or something), and then when that meeting begins they deactivate those people's access to everything. They announce the layoffs and hand out final paychecks, and have security guards escort people out of the building.
For people working from home, depends on the company - most will send a message to the laid off person's personal email and immediately lock the person out. If they don't have a personal email on record they'll just lock them out and send a letter in the mail or something.
Yep, pretty shitty behavior. They do it to keep people from retaliating or organizing a protest or starting drama or whatever.
To me the really weird thing is the way people talk so positively about getting fired on linkedin.
For people working from home, depends on the company - most will send a message to the laid off person's personal email and immediately lock the person out. If they don't have a personal email on record they'll just lock them out and send a letter in the mail or something.
Yep, pretty shitty behavior. They do it to keep people from retaliating or organizing a protest or starting drama or whatever.
To me the really weird thing is the way people talk so positively about getting fired on linkedin.
is it really the norm to just cut off people who are being let go, without the opportunity to say goodbye to their former colleagues?
It varies from company to company, and often based on your relationship with your boss and coworkers, or just how the higher managers want to handle things.
In my country
There are 200+ countries, and 200+ ways of doing things. Not everywhere is like home.
It varies from company to company, and often based on your relationship with your boss and coworkers, or just how the higher managers want to handle things.
In my country
There are 200+ countries, and 200+ ways of doing things. Not everywhere is like home.
Everyone from original CSS-Tricks team should get back together and build a new website. "Tricky-CSS" maybe? Green-fielding a new site is so much more interesting then trying to keep legacy site and its content working. Sad, that we still do not have any decent method to support such sites, that saves from many headaches in daily job.
Over the past couple of years, I have come across numerous articles on CSS-Tricks that discuss other related technologies such as (semantic) HTML, SVG, Canvas, WebGL, UI libraries (e.g. Tailwind), and tools like Saas and PostCSS. So I think when starting a green-field project, it may be more appropriate to use a broader term like "style" or "look", than specifically using the keyword "CSS" (just an idea).
If the license at https://css-tricks.com/license/ is valid, anyone can scrape and rebuild a FOSS version of CSS-Tricks, ideally with a sustainable funding model to support its ongoing development. However, without an editor like Geoff, I am unsure whether it would maintain the same level of quality as CSS-Tricks.
If the license at https://css-tricks.com/license/ is valid, anyone can scrape and rebuild a FOSS version of CSS-Tricks, ideally with a sustainable funding model to support its ongoing development. However, without an editor like Geoff, I am unsure whether it would maintain the same level of quality as CSS-Tricks.
CSS-Tricks was and likely still is a great resource for web developers, congrats on your time working there! I once reached out for a position and heard back from Chris Coyier, ultimately I wasn’t quite motivated enough to start but in hindsight sounded like a great opportunity and appreciated the tentative offer
Somewhat surprised to see this. When Yancey took over from Mark, he seemed like someone who really understood the developer focus of DO was not only what brought the company to the door of the public markets, but would probably be what kept it growing once it was out there. With Gabe coming in having built Deis, it felt double good.
That said, what worked for DO in the early days may not be what will work for it in the future. The main thing we banked on in the early days of DigitalOcean was the explosion of web SWE as a relatively new concentration, remember, we hit our stride in the angular vs ember days, docker was still getting it's footing, coding bootcamps where the hottest new thing. Tutorials, hackathons, OSS made a lot of sense as a go to market for hyper growth. We often talked about the business as b2c not b2b. That's the DO that grew up on HN (something I was personally eternally grateful for). The market has shifted a lot over the past 10 years, the abstractions are way more defined, and web engineering just isn't what it was. It's been a long long long time since I've talked to anyone at DO, but I can can guess that market conditions have changed drastically and continuing a growth push just looks very different from the DigitalOcean we knew when I was selling it. I think Yancey is a smart guy though, and I think he cares about developers, so I still believe in them figuring it out.
Still sad to see a move like this, it feels disrespectful, not just to Geoff, but to the community he and Chris built.
That said, what worked for DO in the early days may not be what will work for it in the future. The main thing we banked on in the early days of DigitalOcean was the explosion of web SWE as a relatively new concentration, remember, we hit our stride in the angular vs ember days, docker was still getting it's footing, coding bootcamps where the hottest new thing. Tutorials, hackathons, OSS made a lot of sense as a go to market for hyper growth. We often talked about the business as b2c not b2b. That's the DO that grew up on HN (something I was personally eternally grateful for). The market has shifted a lot over the past 10 years, the abstractions are way more defined, and web engineering just isn't what it was. It's been a long long long time since I've talked to anyone at DO, but I can can guess that market conditions have changed drastically and continuing a growth push just looks very different from the DigitalOcean we knew when I was selling it. I think Yancey is a smart guy though, and I think he cares about developers, so I still believe in them figuring it out.
Still sad to see a move like this, it feels disrespectful, not just to Geoff, but to the community he and Chris built.
> what worked for DO in the early days may not be what will work for it in the future
Last year I made the pitch at my previous employer to migrate to DO. It made sense, the company was almost entirely on VMs and DO has much better support and offerings for VMs. I was the manager of Operations. I only needed my CIO to approve. The response was "they're amateur, we need Azure of AWS."
I could see a bigger DO changing their image as their main customer goes from in the trenches to in the boardroom.
Last year I made the pitch at my previous employer to migrate to DO. It made sense, the company was almost entirely on VMs and DO has much better support and offerings for VMs. I was the manager of Operations. I only needed my CIO to approve. The response was "they're amateur, we need Azure of AWS."
I could see a bigger DO changing their image as their main customer goes from in the trenches to in the boardroom.
CSS Tricks is my second go-to after MDN for web development knowledge. This is quite sad.
Anyone who have done even a bit of web development have come across CSS Tricks. Wish you good luck!
Damn, this is pretty sad news. Geoff gave me my first opportunity to write for CSS Tricks back when I was starting out, and he was always a wonderful person to collaborate with.
Who knows what the future holds, so I archived css-tricks.com and uploaded it to archive.org: https://archive.org/details/misc-crawls-warc-0002
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Hell of a flip for him. He sold on March 15th, 2022 and was laid-off on Feb 15th, 2023. I sure hope he negotiated his exit payout optimally.
He was an employee of CSS Tricks. The founder did not stay on.
Man, this sucks. CSS-Tricks has long been one of the best resources on the web for doing CSS right and the quality of their writing and research is outstanding.
Bad on DO for going through with this acquisition and then lopping off its head: it's a net negative contribution to the web.
Geoff, thank you for your contributions.
Bad on DO for going through with this acquisition and then lopping off its head: it's a net negative contribution to the web.
Geoff, thank you for your contributions.
is css-tricks completely archived on the iternet archive? it would be a shame to lose all the knowledge that is contained in there, I'm specifically thinking about the comments under posts because I doubt they would survive any migration to digital oceans tutorial site.
And he’s been there since CSS-tricks was bought in april ‘22 if I read the blogposts correctly?
It was announced in March 2022, so under a year ago.
"DigitalOcean acquires CSS-Tricks", March 2022 on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30684594
"DigitalOcean acquires CSS-Tricks", March 2022 on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30684594
> for eight years!
According to SEMRush, CSS-Tricks has close to 4 million unique visitors per month. DigitalOcean gets 11.5 million unique visitors per month. CSS-Tricks gets almost 40% of the traffic, I doubt they will be shutting it down entirely.
I'm new to webdev (literally started learning some front-end two month ago), and this was probably the website who taught me the most, as I kinda knew xml and was already proficient in language ES6-adjascent.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
This site was always a handy goto for the tricky stuff I don't do every day. It was a really great resource and I'm sad to see it go. Time keeps marching on I suppose.
I got recruited for DO's technical writing team a few years back but passed because I was happy in the role I had at the time. Feels like a dodged bullet.
who owns the content ? can it be saved/moved/transferred ? how much does it cost per year ? can that amount be crowdfunded ?
I think CSS tricks makes money for DO as content marketing. So it will continue to exist.
Which articles are the most important or influential to save offline before (or, in case) the site disappears?
Pretty sure the whole site is already on archive.org
Sad to see this happen. Geoff, if you're reading this, please let me glom on to your next thing.
Every time I use flexbox I google flexbox and click on the top result.
> Every time I use flexbox I google flexbox
The CSS Tricks post is excellent to learn flexbox. If you instead want a quick overview about all the properties, you can check out my (printable) flexbox cheat sheet [1]. Someone even built a VSCode extension around it [2].
[1] https://darekkay.com/flexbox-cheatsheet/
[2] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dzhavat....
The CSS Tricks post is excellent to learn flexbox. If you instead want a quick overview about all the properties, you can check out my (printable) flexbox cheat sheet [1]. Someone even built a VSCode extension around it [2].
[1] https://darekkay.com/flexbox-cheatsheet/
[2] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dzhavat....
hopefully the existing content will remain online/preserved?
Ok so... it's not shutdown?
I just said goodbye to CSS. Long live tailwindcss. I'm done fiddling with the assembly language of markup styling. My revulsion to new UI stuff only prolonged the pain.
Sad to see folks who were still holding fort for a lost cause.
Business minded person like Chris Coyier dropped the thing long ago, made $4million of a blog and left.
Chris was never passionate about coding. It was all setup to make money.
Business minded person like Chris Coyier dropped the thing long ago, made $4million of a blog and left.
Chris was never passionate about coding. It was all setup to make money.
No matter what batshit crazy things I stumble upon while running around the internet today, none of them will be as insane as “Chris Coyier was never passionate about coding”. Being “business minded” and “having passion for coding” is not exclusive. Chris is a living breathing coding resource, and that definitely came before he realized that the blogging and conferences and book writing was going to lead to a multimillion dollar payout. He was in the right place at the right time, and willing to put in an overwhelming amount of effort. But it all started with the passion.
[0]: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/