I’ve been thinking about enshitification recently, and I’m also working on a startup with a friend that just received funding. I’ve been wondering how one might arrange a business such that it won’t gradually trend towards shittier products in search of higher profit margins.

Obviously, it would be nice to redesign all of society so that this isn’t a thing, but barring that, does anyone have any ideas for setting up a business in such a way that motivations are aligned with producing a good product?

Currently, we’re trying to retain as much control as possible, but at some point we may go public, and if we do, I’m not sure how to keep us aimed at accomplishing our goals. We’re building a platform that should solve or at least improve the replication crisis in scientific research, and we could lose control to investors that want board seats, or sell to someone like Google.

If we do either, I doubt the company will do what we want it to do in the long term.

Going public is the route that seems less likely to lead to this change in direction, but it seems like it could end in the same place over a long enough timeline.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
    5·
    6 months ago

    You hit the nail on the head with reference to going public. At that point, it’s pretty much out of your hands. You might think you can maintain 51% of the control with the owners, and everything will be fine, but… honestly, just don’t go public.

    Best by far is just to build it up over time without taking outside investment (or borrowing from family or friends you trust, or from the bank, not investment with shares but just borrowing and paying them back). Going the route of big angel investors is so tempting because it opens up so many possibilities, and trying to bootstrap it is so slow and uncertain, but it is absolutely inevitable that the people who gave you a bunch of money are going to wind up calling the shots. If what you’re talking about is something you care about, I would go the bootstrapping route.

    I’ve seen companies work well by bootstrapping themselves up over years of small client work until they were big enough to grow up into real companies, the right way. I’ve seen companies work well by taking out massive loans and paying them back with interest with these big punishing payments every single month. I’ve never seen a company that opened itself up to outside investment survive in its original form as time went on. If what you’re talking about is important to you, I would do everything you can to stay away from it.

    IDK, if you already took on some investment, then I would just work with it as best as you can, and keep in mind trying to get out from under it because you’ve outgrown it, as quickly as you can. I don’t know how you do that really, but that’s the direction I would be thinking if you care about these issues.

    On top of that, things to keep in mind:

    1. The culture. You want people to be able to speak their mind and you want to be able to do the kind of work you want and not the kind that you don’t.
    2. Point out examples of early Google beating out all the enshittified solutions, Facebook and Yahoo squandering their dominant positions through enshittification, things like that. In the long run, it really is a bad idea to cheat your customers and business partners. Maybe pointing that out to a money-focused person will make an impact on their thinking. Maybe not.
    3. Make sure your investors trust you and respect your judgement. If they see you’re wise financially, focused on the bottom line, being responsible with what you’re doing week by week, they’ll be less prone to want to override you with “sensible financial decisions” that will lock you into something horrendous that you won’t want to be doing.