> But the bigger point is that you conflate selling to a bigger company with more resources with “f[ing] their users,” which is just naive.
Because that's what happened to a lot of companies who got bought out - eventually the MBA sharks wanted their returns. Minecraft, MySQL, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Reddit, TwiXXer, they all fell victim to enshittification.
Others just ossified with steady streams of Big Money coming in like Mozilla, Wikipedia or a ton of stuff from Adobe. Or they got closed down by Big Corp because they were no longer "profitable" enough like Google Reader.
Personally, I'm happy enough that HN still exists.
Because that's what happened to a lot of companies who got bought out - eventually the MBA sharks wanted their returns. Minecraft, MySQL, StackOverflow, Tumblr, Reddit, TwiXXer, they all fell victim to enshittification.
Others just ossified with steady streams of Big Money coming in like Mozilla, Wikipedia or a ton of stuff from Adobe. Or they got closed down by Big Corp because they were no longer "profitable" enough like Google Reader.
Personally, I'm happy enough that HN still exists.