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Well - I think the writing was on the wall when they announced they were going to be for-profit. Slippery slope and all that, but I’m sure some of this is becau

• dnnddidiej 5mo ago
  Even as a not for profit they would need cashflow.
  • tombert 5mo ago
    Yes but they would only need enough to keep the lights on and pay the engineers. When you're a for-profit company, especially a public one (which I believe they're looking to be soon), you can't just maintain homeostasis. Your investors want growth every quarter. Conceivably if they stayed non-profit then they could charge just enough to maintain the project, and they wouldn't necessarily have to have ads.
    • dnnddidiej 5mo ago
      The lights being billions in hardware and plant investment, possibly power generation and operations and maintenance, attracting and retaining top 0.01% of engineers. In addition if you don't keep up with SOTA +/- 10% you instantly lose all customers. There is zero stickiness.
      • tombert 5mo ago
        Sure. That still is different than expecting 10-15% yearly growth like publicly traded companies are.