Hello,
I am one of those small home type users with relatively lower end of per capita income geographic location.
I would instinctively side with OP on the issue of Devs being silent on their own product support forum and wishes $$ to offer support. In a perfect world, this is a conflict of interest as tougher and complex you can make your software / app, more users will face issues and would like to have your help and thus more support package sell. It may apply to the documentation part too, since less info = more confusion thus resulting in more support package sell.
But practically, situation is quite different for me.
It’s been 8/9 months since my NextCloud Home server deployment and for people like me, the non technical users, snap way is the best way.
OS install, few simple copy paste commands and it’s up and running with my own domain and SSL. Surely it isn’t as simple as installing an app from mobile app store or double clicking for Windows software install but when you are talking about Linux / Server / Web, it’s perhaps the easiest as it can be.
What more can I expect from this FREEware concept?
OS that I run, there too, Ubuntu Devs are never to be seen in their support forum. Same is true for OpenVPN and almost every piece of Open Source software that I have on my Home Server.
Yes documentations are half baked. I have my own grievance thread on this forum itself about the CPU performance with NextCloud → High CPU Usage NextCloud 22.2.0 (snap) on Ubuntu 20 LTS
But apart from that, for simple basic tasks for a home user, it works the way it is intended and advertised. Most of the questions about it’s basic task aren’t technical enough to justify developer inputs.
But lastly, in this capitalist world of ours, if force support sale is a cruel way of NextCloud Team to intentionally avoid forum activity and publish complex and half baked documentations, then users like me are always in lookout for an alternative and make no mistake, small home users like me will switch without any loyalty when there is one or if NextCloud software isn’t working as it is expected without any complex configuration and technically challenging problem solving.
I am sure, I am not the only one who understands this. Surely the software makers are aware of this too.
Till now the software is working for me. Yes there are random issues with their mobile / desktop apps having it’s own mind with auto upload or sync, new backup app is acting wired, few of such but overall, in general, the software is serving my purpose. The moment there is a better performing alternative, people like me will switch out.
It’s no secrete, OwnCloud → NextCloud happened. IBM’s takeover of Redhat ensured community using Ubuntu to replace the CentOS in the server space.
At the end of the day, feeling is mutual in bothways. Money is needed to drive a project development so certain hard decisions are understandable but if those decisions are greedy enough to annoy a large user base, sooner or later an alternative will pop up and there is no stopping on users to switch out.
And last of all, it may sound hard or harsh but truth is, it’s a free software. Take it the way it is. Not happy? well it’s open source, so change or add to the code as per as your liking. Don’t have time or ability? Then pay Google or MS for convince at the cost of privacy and security. Don’t want to do that either? Then look for an better alternative of NextCloud serving the same purpose
So the question is, do you have any alternative in mind?
Thanks.