this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026

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-32

What's the point on buying from small business/indie dev. if they might become big and greed eventually? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by CodenameDarlen@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm using "business" here as a general word, you can think of it for any field: physical stores, indie developers, startups, etc...

How many times did this happen before? Every big company was once a small one. Google used to be the good guys at the beginning.

We're currently seeing the old praised Proton starts its small pseudo-monopoly business in the privacy focused services field.

You might think you're helping the world by putting your money in the "morally correct" place, but at the end you might be just helping a new greedy company to arise.

I had this thought after seeing the page of a indie game on Steam, it's been a few months I'm pirating everything related to digital media, but then I saw this game from an indie developer that I wish listed in 2023, it got launched oct., 2025. As I decided to pirate everything I had a second thought on this one, "maybe I should pay for this one, it's a good cause, this guy put some effort on it, why not?!", the game currently has 802 reviews, which isn't bad for a indie game.

But then WHAT IF? What if the game becomes popular? What if people start demanding more and buying a lot? What if the developer decide to start a small company to attend the people demand? And what if this company become the new average modern company adding paywalls, DLCs, cosmetics? What if they start abusing AI use to "boost productivity" and ship faster?

What have I done with my money?

Now I face this moral dilemma, should I pay for it or just pirate it like I usually do?

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[–] Libb@piefed.social 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What's the point on buying from small business/indie dev. if they might become big and greed eventually?

Allow me to reformulate to a broader level:

what's the point of living if one is going to die no matter what?

The point is to try to do something.

The worst criminal is still a human being. Does that mean we should all commit suicide, now, the 8+ billion of us, to never risk becoming the same criminal? Hopefully not.

By supporting a (small) company whose work you appreciate you give them a chance to keep on doing good work, maybe. Things can change... and when this happens you can change with which company you chose to spend money.

I had been a customer of Apple since the early 80s. I quit some 6-8 years ago because I realized how not the same company they had turned into.

Edit: typo on the date I started being Apple's customer.

[–] OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Best answer OP could have got