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kaoD12/09/20247 repliesview on HN

> I'm glad the founders got their exit

I'm not.

I mean, I am happy for them but this concept of growing a business to an exit is not going well for society as a whole (at least the exits that are in my areas of interest, so I assume it extrapolates to all exits).

Every single business that gets bought out gets instantly enshittified in one way or another, always to the detriment of the customer. Depending on how entrenched it was it takes a different amount of time for people to move on as the new shareholders extract its economical value, but it almost always destroys societal value in the process as the company becomes a shadow of its former self (and hopefully dies, leaving way for the cycle to start again).

I wish there was a way for founders to get rich without the need for an exit, so the business could keep running... but I guess ruthless enshittification is the only way to get rich?

Apologies for the tangent, this is something that's been bouncing in my mind for a while...


Replies

ChrisMarshallNY12/09/2024

I know that I'm basically being trollbait (around here), by saying this, but I personally believe that the very existence of an "exit plan" is a problem.

A business is supposed to be an ongoing, perpetual enterprise. Maybe it grows, maybe it stays the same, but it isn't something that should (in my opinion) be designed as a product, in itself, with a "sell by" date. If it gets brought up, then that's [maybe] good, but it shouldn't actually be in the business plan. It's just a random lifecycle event. We can plan to be ready for it, but it shouldn't be a corporate goal.

It's quite possible to do that. I worked for nearly 27 years, for a company that is over 100 years old. I think the world's oldest company is over 1,400 years old, and just got brought out, for the first time, about 10 years ago.

babuskov12/09/2024

Agreed. Promising stuff like "Hey we built this because everything else is bad" and then years later selling it to a company that turns it bad is somehow even worse than classic bait and switch.

kiba12/09/2024

Sell it to the employees? It won't be lucrative to selling it to someone with more cash than sense, but it may be more likely to preserve the value. There's no guarantee of course, and there's so little experience societal wide in running an employee co-op.

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fallingknife12/09/2024

Every time that happens it just makes an opportunity for someone else to start a new competitor

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justsomehnguy12/09/2024

> I mean, I am happy for them but this concept of growing a business to an exit is not going well for society as a whole

The last thing I want is to be a 70 y/o still supporting a registrar. Especially considering the margins.

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spondyl12/10/2024

> I mean, I am happy for them but this concept of growing a business to an exit is not going well for society as a whole

Oh yeah, I fully agree with the enshittification sentiment.

Admittedly, a DNS registrar for me personally is something I'd just swap without much thought but I can think of a few services I use where I wouldn't be so loosely coupled from the product if those founders were to exit.

It's a bit paradoxical on my part I think and I do wish we had more lifestyle businesses that don't have to become massive.

Mind you, I would have put iwantmyname in that basket now that I think about it.

travisgriggs12/09/2024

Bonus points for using “enshittified”.