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You seem to forget that some businesses exist before VC funding. Arduino started out as an open-source project, with further development funded by the sale of

by crote 3y ago

You seem to forget that some businesses exist before VC funding. Arduino started out as an open-source project, with further development funded by the sale of physical hardware. They did not need tens of millions of VC funding for that, and they independently developed the "cool stuff" people here care about. Unlike most startups seen here, they were not selling stuff at a loss in the hope of conquering the world and somewhere along the way hopefully figuring out a way to make money. Arduino could've probably continued doing this for decades, but instead they stagnated and were leapfrogged by their competitors. They only need to raise VC funding in order to expand into new markets because they want to pivot towards "professional engineers with enterprise-scale applications".

mbanzi 3y ago
users, especially beginners, like consistency. So you call that "stagnation" I call that "avoid adding stuff that people don't really need". We make more than 100 different products so we haven't stagnated at all.
- crote 3y ago
  And yet that "stuff people don't really need" is selling like hot cakes at your competitors, only for a worse variant to eventually show up at Arduino - although it probably won't even be carried by your own distributors. Sparkfun and Adafruit are reinventing the hobbyist ecosystem with STEMMA/Qwiic. Meanwhile Arduino was (despite the failed kickstarter) earlier to market with the competing ESLOV connector - which seven years later isn't even found on your own bread&butter controller boards. Look, I had fun with Arduino back in the days, but in 2023 you folks simply don't have an attractive product range anymore. When I open Adafruit's website I am almost guaranteed to immediately be greeted by a handful of brand new products which immediately look interesting to me. When I open the Arduino website I have to do a lot of effort to even find a product lineup, and even when I manage to finally get there it isn't at all obvious what I should buy and why. I own several Arduino products, and I genuinely forgot you existed. For your sake I sincerely hope I just live in a massive filter bubble and am massively mistaken about the hobbyist market.
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
Where did I say business couldn't exist without VC? I just said VC money generally seems to make product quality better, even if last only for few years. Here is the list of companies I could find which didn't take VC money: - Oracle - Broadcom - Walmart - MicroStrategy These companies have most enshittified products than most other companies, so it is not the VC money that leads to it.

by crote 3y ago

mbanzi 3y ago

users, especially beginners, like consistency. So you call that "stagnation" I call that "avoid adding stuff that people don't really need". We make more than 100 different products so we haven't stagnated at all.

crote 3y ago
And yet that "stuff people don't really need" is selling like hot cakes at your competitors, only for a worse variant to eventually show up at Arduino - although it probably won't even be carried by your own distributors. Sparkfun and Adafruit are reinventing the hobbyist ecosystem with STEMMA/Qwiic. Meanwhile Arduino was (despite the failed kickstarter) earlier to market with the competing ESLOV connector - which seven years later isn't even found on your own bread&butter controller boards. Look, I had fun with Arduino back in the days, but in 2023 you folks simply don't have an attractive product range anymore. When I open Adafruit's website I am almost guaranteed to immediately be greeted by a handful of brand new products which immediately look interesting to me. When I open the Arduino website I have to do a lot of effort to even find a product lineup, and even when I manage to finally get there it isn't at all obvious what I should buy and why. I own several Arduino products, and I genuinely forgot you existed. For your sake I sincerely hope I just live in a massive filter bubble and am massively mistaken about the hobbyist market.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

Where did I say business couldn't exist without VC? I just said VC money generally seems to make product quality better, even if last only for few years. Here is the list of companies I could find which didn't take VC money: - Oracle - Broadcom - Walmart - MicroStrategy These companies have most enshittified products than most other companies, so it is not the VC money that leads to it.