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Hello, I am a new startup!
I’m funded by venture capital and free to use.
Please come and make me valuable by using me. Make my numbers go up!
Once you do, I’ll have everything I need and I can do whatever I want with the time and effort you’ve put into making me successful.
Not happy? Fuck you, I don’t need you anymore (network effects FTW, amirite?)… I’m laughing all the way to the bank.
Goodbye!
…
Hello, I am a new startup…
* * *
When are we going to learn to say “no” at the start?
A startup cannot enshittify if you don’t allow it to start up.
Once it starts up, gains traction, and the network effects kick in, you lose the power to do anything about it.
The only time you can kill a venture-capital funded startup is at the very beginning.
The way you kill a startup is by not using its free services at the start.
The correct answer to a venture-capital funded startup is always “no, thank you!”
If you want to understand how startups and venture capital work, go to 26:24 on the recording of my talk “Excuse Me, Your Unicorn Keeps Shitting In My Back Yard, Can He Please Not?” from 2016:
https://ar.al/talks/#excuse-me-your-unicorn-keeps-shitting-in-my-back-yard-can-he-please-not
@aral Great talk! I thoroughly agree with your take on startups, but I'm curious what is the alternative when someone comes from the working class with no capital and has an idea for an online service which has the potential to sustain them. What other structures can we use to fund some initiatives, because, speaking as someone who's been working on FOSS for the past year, donations don't cut it.
@db0 I hear you.
This is why must fund things for the common good from the commons. But we’re not. Not really. Not as we should be. (We’re in the same boat with Small Technology Foundation as we build the Small Web with zero EU funding.)
This is what I told the EU parliament a few years ago. It hasn’t made a difference as far as I can tell:
https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/
PS. Thank you for your kind words about the talk :)
@aral OK effectively sadly no actual solutions yet outside of the startup play :(
While criticism of the current system is important, I feel it's largely toothless if valid solutions outside it don't exist.
I wonder if something like the startup play, but incubated by non-profit orgs would work. Basically what NLNet is doing but without being as task-oriented and more of a long-term incubation until profitability. (I've already read your post about your NLNet troubles btw)