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by jawns 1022 days ago
> Add up your SaaS subscriptions last year. You should own that shit by now.

I know a lot of companies are adopting a more irreverent marketing approach, using words that 20 years ago would have been bleeped out.

The swear word itself does not offend me. But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed, especially when the words are coming straight from the CEO.

Purchasing the domain Once.com alone was likely a large investment, and so I would expect this announcement to be more polished. Yet this copy reads more like a blogger's grumpy manifesto.

5 comments

On the other hand, i liked that part. Hell, the fact that it was straight and on topic made me read it, otherwise i'd ignore it - after all it is an announcement for a bunch of products they'll make.

These "polished" announcements you mention tend to be generic borefests that use a bunch of words meaning nothing and feel like some basic AI could write them. Often accompanied with a bunch of generic humans smiling on the camera or doing "work" by pointing/touching their devices. On a site with a white background and a couple inoffensive colors. You know exactly what style i refer to, there have been 283923 of them and i'm sure there are as many site templates for them in pretty much every sort of technology to make sites out there.

> But to me its use here suggests a lack of restraint, and that makes me form a negative opinion about how the business is managed…

If you dig a bit more, the use of the word "shit" may fall lower on your list of things that give you a negative opinion about how the business is managed.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22418208/basecamp-all-hand...

I mean, they lost a good percentage of their top engineers a couple years back because leadership had a pretty serious communications issue with their employees. So not exactly surprised.
I think the usage of the swear word is to explicitly differentiate themselves from all the spineless companies that can't do that, potentially due to a bullshit "growth & engagement"/advertising-based business model. I like it.