TBH it has got to the point now where I just assume people writing these posts are in on the joke and doing it on purpose. At least, I hope that's whats happening.
Why are you so intent on telling everyone off for criticising what, at the very least, is a unimaginative, cliched, and clumsy way of describing a cash grab.
I guess everyone else is tired of seeing the same old rhetoric every time a company sells — it's great news for the founders and maybe the employees, usually not so great news for the users.
There's a podcast called "The Distance"[0] that investigates businesses that have been serving their customers for decades. Those stories are "incredible journeys". Two years of development and marketing ending in an aqui-hire isn't an incredible journey, and it certainly isn't a long journey.
Selling to Google is an accomplishment. It's an interesting accomplishment, but the rhetoric of journeys and battles is tedious. These people have an idea, implement and market it well, work hard, and achieve a solid exit.
They haven't changed the world, done anything particularly praiseworthy, or struggled very hard compared to the "journeys" of millions of other people. They built a business based on a promise to their users, and then more or less said: "screw you guys, we're off to Google now. Thanks for the journey." Pompous SV bullshit.
Why, it's usually indeed a journey, with a liquidity event as a destination. Often the the acquisition also means dissolution, so the destination is final.