"we are not interested in ever selling it."
I know very little about Mullvad specifically, but my general presumption when an organization says this, it means the opposite.
Everyone has a price.
I know very little about Mullvad specifically, but my general presumption when an organization says this, it means the opposite.
Everyone has a price.
No. You really can't buy some people.
Either because they already have more money than they know how to use, or because they have, you know, principles.
"The ends don't justify the means" is also a principle. And it's a good one. 'Many a great evil has been done in the name of good' etc.
If someone won't kill their grandma for one billion dollars, they probably won't do it for 10 billion either.
> And it's a good one.
You're acting as if myself or the parent comment think everyone in business is evil. AFAIK you have no intimate knowledge about the founders and their motivations or what they believe to be "good", seemingly that they have some benevolent worldy principled intentions. At no point am I arguing that people don't have principles, just that those principles may manifest themselves in different ways (as the parent pointed out, the owners might sell and start a non profit privacy based solution, just like, ya know, Brian Acton did)
Please don't ascribe things to me that I did not say. Thanks a bunch.
We're here to evaluate whether the statement "Everyone has a price." (emphasis yours) is true or not and I have no interest in anything beyond that.
After all that's the part of your post I quoted.
In that sense, everyone has a price. It just doesn't necessarily go directly in their pockets.
As long as there is people willing to literally die for a cause, this won't change.
I don't know why Mullvad issued a notice to talk about ownership, but I presume it was because they've gotten alot of M&A interest or it's a marketing move to garner trust from their client-base (i.e. others are getting distrust for selling).
I know more examples of companies who publicly say they're not interested in selling that do than those that don't. In other words, why be public about it?[0] Clearly there is M&A interest for a company like this.
Do you know any for-profit orgs that say publicly they aren't selling and actually don't? Most I know simply aren't public about it.
[0] - Btw - one M&A trick to drive up a valuation is to say you're not for sale. So yes this heuristic is absolutely valid in that sense.
> I don't know why Mullvad issued a notice to talk about ownership
The reason is probably because ExpressVPN was just bought by Kape. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28552731
> Upvoted because you have good points
I have a feeling people are downvoting me because they think people are bad/evil for wanting money. Weird.
You represent a branch of people this system grew which would rather make up some story than to believe that people actually won't sell something because it's important to them.
And yes, think about their families. My SO would throw me out if I's sell what I believe in and I'd deserve it. What an example to the kids would that make? I'd be despicable to them.
Yeah, I agree it's weird.
Personally, I'd love to have enough money to not have to work the rest of my life, or worry about anything. Nothing evil with that.