Platforms that aren't here anymore

Reading Mitchell Hashimoto’s post left me quieter and sadder than I expected. Not because I disagree with the decision, but because it names something I have felt in the background for years without putting words to it.

GitHub was never just hosting for me. It was the room where I grew up as a developer. Issues, PRs, the rhythm of maintainers and strangers trying to ship something together. When someone that committed walks away from the place that shaped their work, it stings. It is sad in the same way good endings are sad: you understand why, and you still wish it were different.

When I was starting out, a short list of products felt like proof that software could be good in a full sense: clear, opinionated, respectful of users, almost aspirational. Heroku, Twitter, and GitHub sat at the top of that list for me. They were not flawless, but they were examples of good craftsmanship, of taste, of what “serious” software could look like on the web.

From Semaphore to Operately to SuperPlane, I kept the same bar: could we build something that felt as clear and opinionated as those products?

None of them are really here in that same way anymore.

1/ Heroku is sunsetting. Deployment never felt so easy and reliable. Docker and Kubernetes are here but the simplicity of Heroku is gone.

2/ Twitter was the place where you follow people and read their thoughts. It is still here, I still read it, but most people around me moved on to LinkedIn. LinkedIn never felt as genuine and authentic as Twitter in 2015.

3/ GitHub is struggling. Leadership is gone. The platform is under strain. Using it feels like a chore, not a pleasure. Just yesterday I wanted to move around some tickets in the backlog and got 500 errors on every second request.

Watching the constellation change is disorienting even when you see it coming. Growing older and realizing that the world is not the same as it was when you were younger.

I still believe in a bright future for people who care about tools and communities. The torch does not stay in one building forever. Cursor, Pierre Computer Company, Zed, Cloudflare the first names that come to mind.

I am grateful for the years those older pillars gave us, and I am looking forward with a bit of sorrow and a lot of curiosity to what we build next.

名残惜しいけど、進む