I don't think it's quite that mischievous. I mean, he doesn't mention Basecamp Next anywhere in the post.

He's basically making the reasonable point to build quality shit people actually want to use without accounting gimmicks and all else will follow. Funny that it takes a Danish guy to understand the American Way™.

He's tired of all the Kool Kids making a product with no hope of ever making money somehow landing millions in VC. It's offending to those of us that actually build things people want to use, but don't happen to live in the right place or have the right institution on their résumé.

> he doesn't mention Basecamp Next anywhere in the post

He doesn't need to; it would undermine the credibility of his message, and given 37signals' business principles, he stands to gain more by spreading FUD towards VC-backed startups in general than by plugging any one particular product.

I still don't see it.

If this is a marketing piece, who is it marketing towards? It certainly doesn't read as if it is written for people who decide what web-based collaboration software their company will use.

/everything/ on their blog is a marketing piece. Nothing they do is altruistic. It either markets a specific product or promotes the brand in general. Part of that brand is lifestyle related - use our products and you'll be a successful small businessman/woman.

The term is enlightened self interest. Think of it like this if it is good for my customers and they all make money then they have more money to pay me. If I get my customers, who are largely start ups and developers, to believe my model, which is clearly working, works, then more people will use my product, and I will have more large clients working in the same space as my company is. Sure it is self interested, but it is also genuine and productive.

Having met DHH a few years back, I think it's safe to say that he's being honest in his feelings towards SV, in the same way that when he rants against the enterprise he's being honest about that too.

The difference between DHH and others is that he's actually practicing what he preaches more often than not.

While 37Signals are brilliant marketers, not every opinion is marketing speak. They actually believe this stuff and don't mind sharing what they think.

> I think it's safe to say that he's being honest in his feelings towards SV,

I think some people associate the word marketing with lies, scams, and whatnot. What if we view the word marketing as a way to market products in a more neutral sense.

Can his honesty a marketing material? why not? it depends who reads it.

A message can be a marketing material regardless the intention behind it.

> The difference between DHH and others is that he's actually practicing what he preaches more often than not.

I think we all know that otherwise we'll call people who don't practice what they preach as a not-genuine.

> They actually believe this stuff and don't mind sharing what they think.

Most people believe on what they build/working on, otherwise it's a one-trick pony and it takes a lot of guts to work in such place especially for engineers.

  >> marketing material with implicit message: "use Basecamp.Next, not Asana, Trello, Sprintly, or other products".

Of course, that is exactly what this is. But he does provide very good (and in my experience accurate) reasons.

Could it just be that now that they've finished building Basecamp Next they have more time to write?

Right! Time to step up the rhetoric and hype machine in prep for the release