I think our perspectives are not really too far apart. Maybe it is just a matter of emphasis.
> This is simply not true. Business exist as legal constructs and there are many things that are good for the business but bad for almost everyone else.
It “exists” as an imaginary construct. The imagining of it exists.
Imaginary constructs have been hugely influential through history. Just think of the mythical figures in whatever religion you don’t believe in. People live and die for these figures. But the figures themselves don’t have any interests because only the belief in them exists, not the actual figures.
> Business, unfortunately, exist to serve their owners. In most cases (I'm talking primarily about larger companies, not <5 people micro-businesses) the owners want money, so everyone at the company is there in order to get the owner more money.
I sort of disagree here. From the worker’s point of view, the business exists to sign their paychecks. Why is this not just as valid as the owners’ point of view?
Realistically, lots of work-politics are driven by the interest of individuals to keep those paychecks coming in. For example, people will make it look like they are working harder than they actually are. Managers will inflate their headcount to appear more important. Etc etc. All of these things happen inside businesses, and if you look at the man-hours spent on them, I don’t think it is obvious that the interest of the owners is a bigger focus of energy. Particularly if we treat “the interest of the owners” as some distinct thing, separate from customer happiness or writing artful code. I think people don’t actually “think of the shareholders” much while doing their jobs, day-to-day. How else can we think of the priorities of a non-sentient thing, other than the aggregate priorities of its sentient, priority-having members?
> Employees won't leave, because the company will make sure they're happy enough. […]
> This is not a sign of any kind of decline, but of a mature and healthy business that can keep going for decades.
For these two points, in retrospect I was terribly vague to the point of just being either wrong or so open to misinterpretation as to be indistinguishable from wrong, so sorry for that. By “good people,” I meant people who were not interested in doing the things you listed. For “zombie state,” I meant shambling on profitably, but not doing anything interesting anymore. See IBM for most of our lives. I accept blame for this one! In particular, I regret writing “good people” because of course “good” is wildly open to interpretation.
> Execs change, products change, even owners change, but the business remains.
I mean, this is sort of a “business of Theseus.” It is really a matter of perspective if, having replaced every component, it is really the same business. Except, in this case, there isn’t even a physical ship in the end to point at.
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Also, it might be worth noting—the article is about what one ought to do, when weighing interests of different parties (user, dev, ops, “business”). If you disagree with me and think the business exists, maybe you agree that prioritizing it over users is not what we ought to do.