Corporate VPN startup Tailscale secures $230 million CAD Series C on back of “surprising” growth
Pennarun confirmed the company had been approached by potential acquirers, but told BetaKit that the company intends to grow as a private company and work towards an initial public offering (IPO).
“Tailscale intends to remain independent and we are on a likely IPO track, although any IPO is several years out,” Pennarun said. “Meanwhile, we have an extremely efficient business model, rapid revenue acceleration, and a long runway that allows us to become profitable when needed, which means we can weather all kinds of economic storms.”
Keep that in mind as you ponder whether and when to switch to self-hosting Headscale.
What you want to look at is the size of the hate and the material reasons for it. And that’s fairly difficult to measure if you’re not paying close attention. Plex hate has been growing dramatically over the last few years because they materially changed their service. They began collecting data some time ago and now they are selling it unless you go and opt out. So the hate is much larger and louder for that reason. For me those last changes were the straw that made it clear we’re just one small push for profit away from my sailing habits getting sold to the American copyright lobby. So I’m currently trialling Jellyfin.
In addition as some have highlighted Jellyfin is markedly different from Plex or Emby in that it’s open source and if something happens to it, forking is the way out, which already happened since Jellyfin is a fork of Emby. Migrating from one open source project to its fork is usually trivial compared to migrating from a proprietary service to another one. And there’s no reasonable chance of my data ending up in the RIAA/MPAA’s hands. So the Plex -> Jellyfin switch everyone is doing is not merely switching to another horse. It’s more like switching to completely different vehicle that you can maintain indefinitely.
E: This process we currently call “enshittification” (not a new process) has now been experienced by wide swaths of people where previously only a small minority understood it. I think that drives faster and wider reaction to these patterns as they’re now very familiar. I think that’s a good thing. I used to give corporations more benefit of the doubt and think in balance but then I did not understand why they do what they do. Now I do and the benefit of the doubt is gone unless there’s something material to support it. Like having open source clients.
Well, I have had dealings with the RIAA back in the pre-Napster era when audio on the internet had not really come into it’s own and most people associated audio on the internet with GeoCities midis…pretty crappy stuff. I ran a fairly successful, fully liscensed, internet radio station with a company called the IM Radio Networks. They along with Phillips created one of the world’s first bookshelf stereos that could ‘tune in’ internet radio as well as AM/FM. Even went to Washington with others to plead our case before a hearing that included Senator Leahy. Yeah, the RIAA are a bunch of reactive assholes and have never been proactive since AM radio first crackled into people’s homes.
I’ve always figured that if it was offered for free on the internet, there were always going to be strings and at some point I’d have to do something different to achieve the same results I was looking for.