[iainctduncan]

You are making some wildy off base assumptions. I'm not a finance guy, I'm a hacker. We do technical diligence. I was a developer for 20 years and am doing a music and CS phd right now. I've slung code in over a dozen languages, I'm the open source developer of Scheme for Max and the csound6~ port to Max, an electronic composer, and a gigging musician. I am currently bootstrapping a music education product in Python, Javascript, C++, and Scheme. You would be very hard pressed to find someone as embedded in the problem domain of bandcamp who also does acquisitions related work.

So I use bandcamp all the time, I have purchased tons of music on it, and the articles have not made any difference to me as a user at all. The only thing I care about is the band I'm purchasing from! I use bandcamp for three reasons: lossless audio, no DRM, fair payments to the band. None of those are at all relevant to their article efforts.

As for most people abhoring PE, believe me, I am under no illusions about our clients. But most software company exits are now PE deals (something like over 75%), so while people might like to make public noises about hating PE, they sure like to sell their companies to them.

[nluken]

Apologies on misunderstanding your role here, most of the speculation on this thread has been related to finances and staffing so I made an assumption there when I shouldn’t have.

> I have purchased tons of music on it, and the articles have not made any difference to me as a user at all

n=1, but that’s true of my perspective as well so perhaps it’s a wash. I do think the editorial staff were more important to some genres than others.

> they sure like to sell their companies to them

I might suggest that this is a case where upper management’s desires directly conflict with the people making the noise (staff and users)

[thedaly]

I have used the platform for years and have purchased quite a bit of music on it. I didn't even know there were articles.

[PhasmaFelis]

> while people might like to make public noises about hating PE, they sure like to sell their companies to them.

I suspect that there's not a lot of overlap between people who publicly fume about good companies being ruined by profit-hungry buyers, and people who start companies explicitly so they can flip them to profit-hungry buyers and ditch.

Does anyone still start businesses with the intention of building and maintaining a really excellent product/service in the long term? Do any of them hold on to that ideal after a few years?

[shiroiuma]

>Does anyone still start businesses with the intention of building and maintaining a really excellent product/service in the long term? Do any of them hold on to that ideal after a few years?

Define "a few". You can't expect most company owners to want to continue running that company for decades on end; eventually, they want to do something else or retire. So at some point, they have to sell. Who's going to buy an existing company that's profitable? Someone who's "profit-hungry" usually. If the company is just a passion project, no one buys it and it just goes under when the owner gets tired of it.

[PhasmaFelis]

> You can't expect most company owners to want to continue running that company for decades on end

That's not actually weird, though. The idea that everyone should be expected to change jobs every few years is very recent.

> Who's going to buy an existing company that's profitable? Someone who's "profit-hungry" usually.

I didn't think this needed specifying, but there's a large difference between the goals "Create a great, enduring service and make a profit doing it" and "generate as much short-term profit as possible regardless of long-term consequences."

[watwut]

I know companies that exist for years and years and even get inherited. I even work in one.

It exists, just not in SV

[shiroiuma]

Inheritance assumes that the founder's kids actually want to run their parent's company. Many times, they don't, so they sell. Running a company is a pain in the ass, so it's understandable many people don't want to be bothered.

[PhasmaFelis]

There's a middle ground between giving a company to your kids and selling it to someone who you know will suck it dry for short-term gains. You can also give (or sell) it to someone that you know and trust to keep it sustainable.

[shiroiuma]

Who? Where do you find this person? Do you have any experience in running a business and selling businesses to others?

And why do people assume that the kids are going to run it well or the same way the founder did? If anything, it seems like the kids of highly successful people are usually spoiled brats, and nothing like their parents. Did Bill Gates' kids create any successful software companies?

[watwut]

If they sell it, it was still inherited. But I literally seen handover to younger family member to happen.

[tacocataco]

Depending on the size, the city/state could purchase the company and loan it to the employees.

If the the loan gets paid off, boom... co-op equally owned by the workers.

[WJW]

And if the loan doesn't get paid off? That city/state is now in a huge hole, having spent money that could've been used to build schools and maintain roads on buying companies off their retiring owners.

In any case I don't see why you would need the detour via local government? A bank could lend the money to the group of employees just fine.

[lotsofpulp]

Sounds like the perfect recipe for corruption.

[stana]

As cheap money era seems to be ending, long term quality product/service might be the only viable strategy going forward.

[NoGravitas]

Inshallah.

[dewey]

It doesn't have to be the choice between "sell to profit-hungry buyer's and ditch" and keeping a company forever.

Sometimes people just want to do something different with their time after running their business for a long time and a PE deal is the easiest and most structured way of doing that.

[PhasmaFelis]

Sure. But (assuming you'd reached sustainable profitability, as BandCamp reportedly had) you can choose whether you sell to someone who intends to maintain what you've built, or someone who you know will suck it dry for short-term profits.

[disposition2]

> So I use bandcamp all the time, I have purchased tons of music on it, and the articles have not made any difference to me as a user at all. The only thing I care about is the band I'm purchasing from! I use bandcamp for three reasons: lossless audio, no DRM, fair payments to the band. None of those are at all relevant to their article efforts.

Just to add a conflicting opinion, I love the articles and often use them for music discovery and purchases. Of course, the primary function is to purchase music from known entities but the discovery part keeps me coming back. In terms of ROI, to me the articles seem like a pretty smart marketing move…without them I would not have discovered all kinds of artists and made numerous purchases.

[iainctduncan]

I'm sure you're right and some do find bandcamp through them. The really hard part is quantifying that though. Does it generate enough business for six writers? If it does, awesome, and I'm totally wrong.

My guess is the big content initiative was someone's brain child, and once companies get past a certain size, it's very hard to pull the plug on a leader's baby. Until the company changes hand and the next set of leaders want to eat the previous young and put their own babies in there.

[fairity]

> But most software company exits are now PE deals (something like over 75%)

Can you provide a source for this? I don't doubt it, but I'm wondering if this is accurate for startups that have raised seed+ funding.