In our opinion, flakes are the future of Nix and we're doing the hard work of using them extensively everywhere we can. While we do that, we fix bugs and papercuts along the way. I don't think flakes _can_ meaningfully stabilize without people pushing them to their boundaries and then addressing the problems that come up.
In other words, yes: we are doubling down because we don't see a future of Nix where flakes or something like them aren't central.
you guys seem very <ahem>, determined, to do things your way. I'm kinda new to the whole nix community and it just feels like you guys are a bull in a china shop. Maybe that's what it needs. Strong, opinionated, decisive, leadership. Dunno. All I can say is I hope, I _really_ hope, that you guys don't become, basically, Nix's "google". Defacto owning it to all of our costly detriment over time. It's why I'm tempted, despite their polish, to stay away from your products for the time being.
My feeling is we’ve been careful and considered about what we build and why, though I understand some folks don’t like what we’ve made. That’s their right, just like it is our right to build things we think are important and add value to the Nix community. We’re not in charge of the Nix project: Nix has its own governance and processes that we also engage with.
Most of our tools are open source, totally free, and don’t depend on us as a company continuing to exist. In many cases I hope the Nix project wants to adopt and take over some of our work — like the installer.
Our goal is to make Nix as good as possible, and do it together. In the meantime, it’s okay to not use our tools :)
In other words, yes: we are doubling down because we don't see a future of Nix where flakes or something like them aren't central.