Exactly. Plex could have been “profitable” in the sense that revenue covered infrastructure and paid a handful of full time employees, but that’s not what VC money needs.
Comment on Plex has paywalled my server!
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks agoDonations isn’t going to cover the hunger of a 40 million dollar VC round. Those investors want more than a return, they want plex profitable ASAP
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Investors are like parasitic leeches to any business model. As soon as you add them, the business has to grow in order to satisfy the leeches who provide no benefit to the model other than to be attached to it. If you ignore the leech, they’ll drain all your lifeforce, so you’re only option is to satisfy them and feed them. Unfortunately, they are also ravenous creatures who are never satisfied. If you feed them a little, they’ll want more next time in an endless cycle.
Once you are infected by investors … eventually they will destroy whatever you created.
tkw8@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
You have this semi-backwards. The VC isn’t really a leech because Plex pitches the venture fund with a well developed enshittification plan already in place. Assuming everyone is acting in good faith (i.e. the VC doesn’t just want to just shut it down and sell Plex for parts), Plex’s (enshittification) plan is the reason it makes sense for the venture fund to invest in the first place. Plex promises their plan is why the VC will make an outsized return on their investment and it is what the VC validates as part of their pre-investment due diligence. But that plan is created (and sometimes even put into operation) before any VC investment occurs.
non_burglar@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Yes, you got this bang-on. Plex made the decision long ago.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 4 weeks ago
And they likely made it because without VC funding they would have gone under, because people that use services like Plex tend to not want to pay to use said services.