Recently, I have been trying to identify software I liked that was NOT ruined in some manner by its company's acquisition. I'm sure I'm forgetting successes somehow, but at this point it's a list containing one highly debatable item. So, for me, no.
YouTube for me. It was ad-free in the beginning but it never would have survived that way for long. The current ad experience is palatable at least. And clients work well in all browsers/iPhone/Android/embedded.
For months I was wondering if they were intentionally boosting stats by playing videos after I scrolled them out of sight on my phone. I finally @‘ed them on Twitter and it got fixed a few days later.
I don’t know if this anecdote is in their favor or not, but “works” is a pretty broad category and “works well” is really up to interpretation. I’m glad they fixed it, having random videos blast out loud at me with no intention of watching them was really upsetting! But as far as I know the previous behavior was “working” too.
Many would say GitHub started going downhill when it raised VC money. Before the fundraise it was the poster child of bootstrapped and profitable companies
