[randomdata]

> Like...they could go public

That's the option that has been chosen. That is not an alternative. The product will soon be in the hands of the public. That's also the worry as the public doesn't care about the product and thus won't put the product's interest in mind.

> or sell to a new owner that isn't already the biggest in the field

That's not really an alternative either with respect to the discussion about the new owners potentially letting the product languish or die. It is different, but still reaches the same outcome, potentially. You are still risking that the owner doesn't care about the product.

As discussed, selling to the customers would mitigate this, as they have reason to care about the product, but we already established that they didn't express interest. We would never want to force someone into owning it.

> Your imagination can't be this limited?

It is. Hopefully someone with an imagination will come along at some point. I'm quite interested to hear about alternatives.