Does anyone know what is their monetization plan, or if they even have one? Editor with even this much polish takes a lot of time and effort. How is it being funded? Can we expect useful features to progressively get locked behind subscription as it grows in popularity (a la Gitlab)?
We envision Zed as a free-to-use editor, supplemented by subscription-based, optional network features, such as:
Channels and calls
Chat
Channel notes
We plan to allow offer our collaboration features to open source teams, free of charge.
Edit 2: They have apparently also already raised money via private equity. I am quiet soured on "free" products which will almost always be enshittified as the pressure to turn profit grows.
Yeah, I just can't get excited by anything this foundational that has monetization plans. While neovim is a pain to configure and will probably never be a polished "product", it's completely free to use, with no weird monetization features that might start out in good faith, but slowly creep into must-have parts of the software.
I'm perfectly willing to pay for some types of software, but for something as fundamental as my text editor, I want a model that doesn't depend on a company that needs money. That may sound a bit backward, as it otherwise depends on the goodwill of volunteer contributors, but that's the model I prefer and actually believe in.
Edit: Nevermind, found it - https://zed.dev/faq#how-will-you-make-money. Interesting charter.
Edit 2: They have apparently also already raised money via private equity. I am quiet soured on "free" products which will almost always be enshittified as the pressure to turn profit grows.