--- title: GitHub Was Never About the Source Code | daily.dev description: A developer reflects on a GitHub outage to argue that the platform's real value was never the source code hosting itself, but the social community built around... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/github-was-never-about-the-source-code-joefurlzh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: GitHub Was Never About the Source Code | daily.dev og:description: A developer reflects on a GitHub outage to argue that the platform's real value was never the source code hosting itself, but the social community built around... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/github-was-never-about-the-source-code-joefurlzh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/JOeFurlzH.png og:image:alt: GitHub Was Never About the Source Code og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # GitHub Was Never About the Source Code **[Matthias Endler](https://daily.dev/sources/endler)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer reflects on a GitHub outage to argue that the platform's real value was never the source code hosting itself, but the social community built around it — stars, discovery, and connections with other developers. The author laments that this community is dissipating, partly due to AI-generated pull requests reducing meaningful human interaction, and calls for someone to build a new decentralized developer community, comparing the idea to Keybase or Mastodon. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Before GitHub](https://daily.dev/posts/before-github-jjxtuvtbh) · Armin Ronacher · 95 upvotes · 5 comments - [GitHub is the wrong shape for this new world](https://daily.dev/posts/github-is-the-wrong-shape-for-this-new-world-sobuyfyho) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 2 comments - [Ditching GitHub](https://daily.dev/posts/ditching-github-vdjgxgl6t) · Lobsters · 145 upvotes · 20 comments - [How GitHub plans to win developers back](https://daily.dev/posts/how-github-plans-to-win-developers-back-9hvijs2gi) · The New Stack · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#github](https://daily.dev/tags/github), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/github-was-never-about-the-source-code-joefurlzh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"GitHub Was Never About the Source Code","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/github-was-never-about-the-source-code-joefurlzh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/github-was-never-about-the-source-code-joefurlzh"},"datePublished":"2026-08-17T14:57:54.106Z","dateModified":"2026-08-17T20:11:16.850Z","description":"A developer reflects on a GitHub outage to argue that the platform's real value was never the source code hosting itself, but the social community built around...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/04db44f0da19625e7a163dfb0bf33ad0?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/04db44f0da19625e7a163dfb0bf33ad0?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Matthias Endler","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Matthias Endler","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--YE8mbc4j--/f_auto/v1726990211/logos/endler","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/endler"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/github-was-never-about-the-source-code-joefurlzh","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"open-source,github,ai-coding","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matthias Endler","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/endler"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"GitHub Was Never About the Source Code"}]} ```