Arduino started out as an open-source project, with further development funded by the sale of physical hardware. They did not need tens of millions of VC funding for that, and they independently developed the "cool stuff" people here care about. Unlike most startups seen here, they were not selling stuff at a loss in the hope of conquering the world and somewhere along the way hopefully figuring out a way to make money. Arduino could've probably continued doing this for decades, but instead they stagnated and were leapfrogged by their competitors.
They only need to raise VC funding in order to expand into new markets because they want to pivot towards "professional engineers with enterprise-scale applications".
Look, I had fun with Arduino back in the days, but in 2023 you folks simply don't have an attractive product range anymore. When I open Adafruit's website I am almost guaranteed to immediately be greeted by a handful of brand new products which immediately look interesting to me. When I open the Arduino website I have to do a lot of effort to even find a product lineup, and even when I manage to finally get there it isn't at all obvious what I should buy and why.
I own several Arduino products, and I genuinely forgot you existed. For your sake I sincerely hope I just live in a massive filter bubble and am massively mistaken about the hobbyist market.
- Oracle
- Broadcom
- Walmart
- MicroStrategy
These companies have most enshittified products than most other companies, so it is not the VC money that leads to it.
Accepting VC funding 99% of the time means that is the route they plan to go.