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37signals (and others) proved that a different approach is possible.

Yeah, it can work. Valve is private and basically owns the pc game distribution market. Even competing agains industry titans like MS.

I’m not sure I know another example, so maybe it’s very rare.

A few companies in tech have plenty of goodwill, even if not all are privately owned: RedHat (currently burning theirs), Mozilla, 37signals, Khan Academy, Mapbox, Komoot, DuckDuckGo, Brave, etc.

Not all these have a viable business model, but they’re not obsessed with growth and brokering user data.

Why does it have to grow?

It can also be stagnant, which is totally acceptable as well.

You can't really be stagnant due to competition. Not unless you're deep into some niche that's difficult to get started in or stick around.