<story><title>Adobe&apos;s buy of Figma is &apos;likely&apos; bad for developers, rules UK regulator</title><url>https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/29/adobes_buy_of_figma_is/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kypro</author><text>If I was to try to steel man an argument for why acquisitions like this are good it would be that a lot of startups like Figma only exist because acquisitions are common and therefore offers early investors an exit on their investment that isn&amp;#x27;t 1-2 decades in the future.&lt;p&gt;If we got rid of M&amp;amp;A in tech there would significantly less investment and much less innovation, which I think you could argue is bad for the ecosystem as a whole and the end consumer of these products – even if individual acquisitions are often not great when viewed independently.&lt;p&gt;Or to look at it another way, big tech basically outsources their R&amp;amp;D to startups and the successful projects (companies) are then acquired. And this goes both ways given the goal of a lot startups is to be acquired.</text></item><item><author>happymellon</author><text>There was no upside to this.&lt;p&gt;Much like Microsoft&amp;#x27;s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Oktas acquiring Auth0, it is just market consolidation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>capybara_2020</author><text>Alternate argument. Maybe these kinds of investments are bad and we would have more realistic companies if founders and investors focused on profitable companies and making sure their customers were actually happy rather than trying to look appealing to some behemoth that will buy them down the line or other investors.</text></comment>
<story><title>Adobe&apos;s buy of Figma is &apos;likely&apos; bad for developers, rules UK regulator</title><url>https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/29/adobes_buy_of_figma_is/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kypro</author><text>If I was to try to steel man an argument for why acquisitions like this are good it would be that a lot of startups like Figma only exist because acquisitions are common and therefore offers early investors an exit on their investment that isn&amp;#x27;t 1-2 decades in the future.&lt;p&gt;If we got rid of M&amp;amp;A in tech there would significantly less investment and much less innovation, which I think you could argue is bad for the ecosystem as a whole and the end consumer of these products – even if individual acquisitions are often not great when viewed independently.&lt;p&gt;Or to look at it another way, big tech basically outsources their R&amp;amp;D to startups and the successful projects (companies) are then acquired. And this goes both ways given the goal of a lot startups is to be acquired.</text></item><item><author>happymellon</author><text>There was no upside to this.&lt;p&gt;Much like Microsoft&amp;#x27;s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Oktas acquiring Auth0, it is just market consolidation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crote</author><text>The problem isn&amp;#x27;t that they are acquired, the problem is that they are acquired by their primary competitor, leading to a quasi-monopoly.&lt;p&gt;If Figma was being acquired by &lt;i&gt;literally&lt;/i&gt; any other company the regulators wouldn&amp;#x27;t have any problems with it.</text></comment>