richer, more tactful billionaires
It’s not even that complicated: at some point the non-billionaire investors are going to want a return on their investment, and they’re going to push BlueSky, Inc. public and that’s the end of that.
An IPO is every bit as bad for independence as a nutjob buying your company, because you’re really just selling your company to every nutjob who puts up $10.
I think that’s kinda a generational problem. When you played WoW 20 years ago, all the chatter was in the game, because where else would someone be asking where Mankrik’s wife was?
Kids these days (and old people who are paying attention, too, I guess) just join the Guild discord because it’s persistent chat outside of the game with push notifications and streaming and you can listen to shared playlists while raiding and all sorts of shit you just can’t do in the game.
So sure, MMO people don’t chat in game as much anymore, but there’s still a vibrant meme-sharing-and-yelling-at-the-hunter community in Discord now.