9 ms·

Honest, naive, somewhat rhetorical question: has any organization ever said "We are good, we can stop growing now.", followed through on it, and then not been t

Honest, naive, somewhat rhetorical question: has any organization ever said "We are good, we can stop growing now.", followed through on it, and then not been thoroughly outcompeted or obsoleted?

akolbe 5y ago
There are other ways of asking. You can enthuse people with your plans for the future, rather than creating a completely spurious impression that your financial independence is under threat.
bombcar 5y ago
Small colleges and small businesses sprint to mind as examples. You just never hear about them because they’re quietly doing what they do. It’s more rare in publicly traded companies - though it can happen. Often it changes after a founder dies.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
Of course, this is extremely frequent and easiest to see with small businesses (which make up a good proportion of all productive organizations) that are often limited by the time the owner puts into them, and yet can remain in operation for many many years. Restaurants, your plumber, a family-famer, a small hotel, a tourist charter / operator, etc. Considering the main productive work of developing wikipedia is done by volunteers, does funding need to grow vastly in order to keep growing that? And if the goal is to create accessible and open knowledge for all and a superior competitor came along that was able to thoroughly outcompete and obsolete wikipedia unless vast amounts of money kept coming in, it doesn't seem like the goal would necessarily be lost. Might even be achieved better and cheaper.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 5y ago
> has any organization ever said "We are good, we can stop growing now.", followed through on it, and then not been thoroughly outcompeted or obsoleted? The question should be rather asked like that: "Has any charity/NGO ever pretended that they would not be able to run another year without donations RIGHT NOW from everyone visiting their site, while they are fully loaded and not being transparent about it?"
swalsh 5y ago
As a donator, it would be important to me that my money is being used for new projects which tie into or improve the core product. Or at least be 100% transparent that it's not.
theshrike79 5y ago
There are family-owned businesses in Japan that have been the same for over a thousand years. They don't grow, they don't expand or move into new fields. They do their one thing, they do it perfectly. All extra money is saved for a rainy day. Most can run for years without a yen of money coming in just on their savings.
- comprev 5y ago
  And because they have proven the test of time new customers will be attracted by this alone.
denton-scratch 5y ago
The KLF?
- aezell 5y ago
  They burned it!
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Private companies that don't have to answer to nagging shareholders. You don't hear about them because there's nothing newsworthy about them.
CPLX 5y ago
Craigslist comes to mind.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Which honestly has gone a bit downhill because a lot of people are using Facebook Marketplace instead. Though, I suppose maybe they're small enough to not care?
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Craigslist has done virtually nothing to improve the quality of listings on it's site. They seem to actively refuse to do anything about duplicate posts, keyword abuse, and those listings where the 'price' is $1. Go ahead and search 'iPhone' on your local Craigslist and you'll see a ton of posts advertising screen repair and used cars. And, there are dozens of identical listings that you assume their system would block, but they just don't. I'm glad Facebook Marketplace came along because CL is resting on its laurels.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      True, but I'm not into the idea that the rando dude lowballing me for an iPhone and getting mad at me when I say "no" now knows what I look like.
      - BitwiseFool 5y ago
        I'm not even looking for CL to do identity verification. Just to put a modicum of effort into removing duplicate listings and obvious advertisements hijacking keywords.
hellweaver666 5y ago
Theres a great book about companies that do exactly that. It's called "Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big" by Bo Burlingham.
- akolbe 5y ago
  We can safely say that's had a negligible impact on WMF aspirations, which are more of the world-conquering kind.
- cpach 5y ago
  Thank you for the recommendation! Looks like an interesting book. I’ve put it on my to-read list :)
slightwinder 5y ago
What competition is there for Wikipedia at the moment that could outcompete or make it obsolete? But generally, there are many businesses and projects around the world which stay at their size and run successful for a long time. I mean isn't Hacker News itself an example for this? Small forum, running year after year and barely changing, nor aiming for growth.
- akolbe 5y ago
  Wikipedia fuels Google's Knowledge Graph panel and Assistant, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Bing's and DuckDuckGo's info panels etc. One of the biggest challenges to Wikipedia is actually that "Wikipedia’s facts are now increasingly extracted without credit by artificial intelligence processes that consume its knowledge and present it as objective fact." https://hfordsa.medium.com/rise-of-the-underdog-92565503e4af https://hfordsa.medium.com/rise-of-the-underdog-92565503e4af People may remember how Freebase disappeared – absorbed in Wikimedia's CC-0-licensed Wikidata project (contributor rights be damned), just like much of Wikipedia's infobox content got absorbed in Wikidata (database rights be damned). And there is now actually a chance that even more of Wikipedia's content will end up CC-0 licensed (i.e. completely free and public domain, usable without attribution): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abstract_Wikipedia/Licensing_discussion https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abstract_Wikipedia/Lice... That would be horrible, as end users would no longer even be given an indication where content presented to them comes from. (Gresham's law also works in the information ecosystem.) There should always be a Wikipedia, but going CC-0 in a bid for complete world domination is an almost Orwellian dystopia that can only benefit the same Silicon Valley lot who preferred CC-0 Wikidata to CC BY-SA Freebase.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Wikipedia being absorbed into algorithmic GPT-3 esque soup is qualitatively different from being absorbed by another human source. As long as AI-based articles are algorithmically generated nonsense, those seeking accurate knowledge won't turn to them.
jihadjihad 5y ago
I once visited a winery in Tuscany that had been producing Chianti for over 800 years. Probably not the type of organization you were going for, but it's what I thought of first.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  Actually that one could be affected by competition too. If the market keeps driving down prices and they don't adapt, nobody will end up buying their wine because it'll cost "too much" compared to the competition. But they can fight back in ways other than price. They can gain an appellation designation which gives them more value for being unique, or they could lobby local politicians to secure more favorable terms for local taxes or distribution.
  - thatguy0900 5y ago
    How much is small batch artisanal wine actually subject to market forces? You can already buy decent tasting wine (or alchoholic koolaid at least) for 5-10$ a bottle. As long as the quality is good people will always be willing to pay more for it, its a luxury product.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      Everything is subject to market forces. The extra price for luxury goods is justified by the social status it implies and by the extra quality
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - hcarvalhoalves 5y ago
    There's a market for a 800 year old winery. Not everything has to be a race to the bottom.
agumonkey 5y ago
I guess growth is just the wrong concept in general. Improving or even stabilizing is already great. And you can always do a little on this front.
rjh29 5y ago
Synthstrom make the Deluge, a popular groovebox (music creator) and have recently stopped all advertising and promotions because their staff were overworked trying to fulfill orders and they have enough money coming in to sustain themselves.

Honest, naive, somewhat rhetorical question: has any organization ever said "We are good, we can stop growing now.", followed through on it, and then not been thoroughly outcompeted or obsoleted?

akolbe 5y ago

There are other ways of asking. You can enthuse people with your plans for the future, rather than creating a completely spurious impression that your financial independence is under threat.

bombcar 5y ago

Small colleges and small businesses sprint to mind as examples. You just never hear about them because they’re quietly doing what they do. It’s more rare in publicly traded companies - though it can happen. Often it changes after a founder dies.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

Of course, this is extremely frequent and easiest to see with small businesses (which make up a good proportion of all productive organizations) that are often limited by the time the owner puts into them, and yet can remain in operation for many many years. Restaurants, your plumber, a family-famer, a small hotel, a tourist charter / operator, etc. Considering the main productive work of developing wikipedia is done by volunteers, does funding need to grow vastly in order to keep growing that? And if the goal is to create accessible and open knowledge for all and a superior competitor came along that was able to thoroughly outcompete and obsolete wikipedia unless vast amounts of money kept coming in, it doesn't seem like the goal would necessarily be lost. Might even be achieved better and cheaper.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 5y ago

> has any organization ever said "We are good, we can stop growing now.", followed through on it, and then not been thoroughly outcompeted or obsoleted? The question should be rather asked like that: "Has any charity/NGO ever pretended that they would not be able to run another year without donations RIGHT NOW from everyone visiting their site, while they are fully loaded and not being transparent about it?"

swalsh 5y ago

As a donator, it would be important to me that my money is being used for new projects which tie into or improve the core product. Or at least be 100% transparent that it's not.

theshrike79 5y ago

There are family-owned businesses in Japan that have been the same for over a thousand years. They don't grow, they don't expand or move into new fields. They do their one thing, they do it perfectly. All extra money is saved for a rainy day. Most can run for years without a yen of money coming in just on their savings.

comprev 5y ago
And because they have proven the test of time new customers will be attracted by this alone.

denton-scratch 5y ago

The KLF?

aezell 5y ago
They burned it!

JohnWhigham 5y ago

Private companies that don't have to answer to nagging shareholders. You don't hear about them because there's nothing newsworthy about them.

CPLX 5y ago

Craigslist comes to mind.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
Which honestly has gone a bit downhill because a lot of people are using Facebook Marketplace instead. Though, I suppose maybe they're small enough to not care?
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Craigslist has done virtually nothing to improve the quality of listings on it's site. They seem to actively refuse to do anything about duplicate posts, keyword abuse, and those listings where the 'price' is $1. Go ahead and search 'iPhone' on your local Craigslist and you'll see a ton of posts advertising screen repair and used cars. And, there are dozens of identical listings that you assume their system would block, but they just don't. I'm glad Facebook Marketplace came along because CL is resting on its laurels.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    True, but I'm not into the idea that the rando dude lowballing me for an iPhone and getting mad at me when I say "no" now knows what I look like.
    - BitwiseFool 5y ago
      I'm not even looking for CL to do identity verification. Just to put a modicum of effort into removing duplicate listings and obvious advertisements hijacking keywords.

hellweaver666 5y ago

Theres a great book about companies that do exactly that. It's called "Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big" by Bo Burlingham.

akolbe 5y ago
We can safely say that's had a negligible impact on WMF aspirations, which are more of the world-conquering kind.
cpach 5y ago
Thank you for the recommendation! Looks like an interesting book. I’ve put it on my to-read list :)

slightwinder 5y ago

What competition is there for Wikipedia at the moment that could outcompete or make it obsolete? But generally, there are many businesses and projects around the world which stay at their size and run successful for a long time. I mean isn't Hacker News itself an example for this? Small forum, running year after year and barely changing, nor aiming for growth.

akolbe 5y ago
Wikipedia fuels Google's Knowledge Graph panel and Assistant, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Bing's and DuckDuckGo's info panels etc. One of the biggest challenges to Wikipedia is actually that "Wikipedia’s facts are now increasingly extracted without credit by artificial intelligence processes that consume its knowledge and present it as objective fact." https://hfordsa.medium.com/rise-of-the-underdog-92565503e4af https://hfordsa.medium.com/rise-of-the-underdog-92565503e4af People may remember how Freebase disappeared – absorbed in Wikimedia's CC-0-licensed Wikidata project (contributor rights be damned), just like much of Wikipedia's infobox content got absorbed in Wikidata (database rights be damned). And there is now actually a chance that even more of Wikipedia's content will end up CC-0 licensed (i.e. completely free and public domain, usable without attribution): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abstract_Wikipedia/Licensing_discussion https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abstract_Wikipedia/Lice... That would be horrible, as end users would no longer even be given an indication where content presented to them comes from. (Gresham's law also works in the information ecosystem.) There should always be a Wikipedia, but going CC-0 in a bid for complete world domination is an almost Orwellian dystopia that can only benefit the same Silicon Valley lot who preferred CC-0 Wikidata to CC BY-SA Freebase.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Wikipedia being absorbed into algorithmic GPT-3 esque soup is qualitatively different from being absorbed by another human source. As long as AI-based articles are algorithmically generated nonsense, those seeking accurate knowledge won't turn to them.

jihadjihad 5y ago

I once visited a winery in Tuscany that had been producing Chianti for over 800 years. Probably not the type of organization you were going for, but it's what I thought of first.

throwaway984393 5y ago
Actually that one could be affected by competition too. If the market keeps driving down prices and they don't adapt, nobody will end up buying their wine because it'll cost "too much" compared to the competition. But they can fight back in ways other than price. They can gain an appellation designation which gives them more value for being unique, or they could lobby local politicians to secure more favorable terms for local taxes or distribution.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  How much is small batch artisanal wine actually subject to market forces? You can already buy decent tasting wine (or alchoholic koolaid at least) for 5-10$ a bottle. As long as the quality is good people will always be willing to pay more for it, its a luxury product.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Everything is subject to market forces. The extra price for luxury goods is justified by the social status it implies and by the extra quality
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- hcarvalhoalves 5y ago
  There's a market for a 800 year old winery. Not everything has to be a race to the bottom.

agumonkey 5y ago

I guess growth is just the wrong concept in general. Improving or even stabilizing is already great. And you can always do a little on this front.

rjh29 5y ago

Synthstrom make the Deluge, a popular groovebox (music creator) and have recently stopped all advertising and promotions because their staff were overworked trying to fulfill orders and they have enough money coming in to sustain themselves.