Comment by jonas21
2 days ago
> GitHub is completely unrecognizable compared to how it was before being gamified and turned into social media.
Huh? The whole premise on which Github was founded was that it was "social coding". The phrase was even in the logo in the early days [0]. Social features like stars, following, and the activity feed have been there from very early on.
If anything, I feel like Github has become a lot more corporate and enterprisey since getting bought by Microsoft.
[0] https://github.blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/3e6c0720-b15a...
GitHub was founded to make managing permissions and sharing a git repo easier. It was a nightmare when git was first starting to get traction. Their original tagline was “git repo hosting - no longer a pain in the ass.”
The social stuff came later as they realized that a big part of the friction in software development (and the actual business opportunity) was the actual working together part. They really innovated here and created a culture of workflows that has permeated the way most of us work.
But then there were a few years where they really didn’t seem to do anything of note (I remember there was a five month stretch where they didn’t post a single product update). And then they got bought. After that I don’t really know what their intention has been, but I guess this change brings it more into focus.
The product works fine for our use cases (and the fact everyone has a GitHub account makes the management piece super easy even with wacky enterprise requirements), but I hope they don’t start jacking up prices to pay for AI that I really really don’t want.