Rich, I know where you come from, and I wholeheartedly believe what you say. But this is just the start of a relationship between you and Vercel. And you know that relationships will change over time and so on. And you won't.be.independent. There is just too much money on the table. Nobody will give you orders, there are much smarter ways.
The point is, Vercel did everything right, no blame to them, great CEO, awesome Tim, they are masterminds and their great social media army does their best to celebrate this event in all social networks atm. But you know yourself very well that one player just left the market. We will face less competition and possibly stagnation in some areas. This doesn't hurt Vercel nor you but us.
Ofc you will be dependent, they pay you, you want Vercel to be successful (ESOP). We will see, e.g. that Vercel will be a first-class citizen as deployment option. There are many more fields where Vercel can/will get a special treatment, so subtly that nobody will get it. Business is more sophisticated than many might think.
Or think this the way around, there endless possibilities to drive somebody down, demotivate and degenerate him to a point where he looses all his drive and motivation. Look at yourself today, look how much energy and charisma you have when holding speeches about Svelte. In 2 years, go back to this comment and ask yourself if you are the same energetic Rich, if you are happy and if sold out too early 2 year ago.
> I would be the worst person in the world to try and build a business around Svelte.
No you just underestimate yourself. What are you doing right now? Giving talks, writing, communicating. People, masses follow you not just because Svelte is great, no because you can communicate well and know how to lead people. This is what a CEO is doing 99% of his day. This is building a business, communicating, finding and winning the best people.
You found already the best people, just look in your repos and look which contributors work for Svelte! And you were the leader, had an as good team as Vercel and follow now...
And if I watch you talking there is a strong desire to be more (not that a dev is less!). Whatever, I'd have expected that you at least went shopping with Vercel's offer to CloudFlare. I mean they do real rocket science (Durable Objects) and you opt for Next which started to renovate their stack (esm, swc) just recently after years.
Oh man, I like you too much to be too angry but yeah, not happy.