Shareholders and investors always want more while becoming more risk averse over time, so a company loses the ability to innovate and then switches its focus to

Shareholders and investors always want more while becoming more risk averse over time, so a company loses the ability to innovate and then switches its focus to squeezing the customer. Not to mention the cohort in product, design and engineering who want to work on the new shiny and embark on massive rewrite projects that deliver only a subset of old functionality because the ‘metrics’ support it. They’re never around to maintain it long term. Not an issue if you don’t go public or accept VC or have perverse incentives that encourage enshittification over excellence. Nobody pulling the strings for you then.