What the Rambler Group's attack on Nginx really means and what the online industry should prepare for

In the post "What does the Rambler Group's attack on Nginx and the founders mean and how will it affect the online industry» deniskin gave four possible consequences of this story for the Russian Internet industry:

• Deterioration of investment attractiveness of startups from Russia.
• Startups will more often be incorporated outside of Russia.
• There is no longer any doubt about the state's desire to control important online business.
• Compromise of the Rambler Group HR brand.

All of the above are not consequences, but, most likely, the reasons for the Rambler attack on Nginx. More precisely, it is a description of the conditions in which the Russian online industry already exists - conditions in which attacks like this one are not a mistake, not an accident, but a pattern.

1. The investment climate in Russia has long been poor;
2. startups (and not only), if possible, have long been incorporated outside of Russia;
3. there has long been no doubt about the desire of the state to control important online business;
4. the Rambler brand has long been compromised.

In other words, the pie - in terms of places in the economy where you can still get money - is shrinking at an ever-increasing pace, and there are no fewer gaping mouths. As a result, the struggle for each piece intensifies.

So trying to wake up the Rambler to report that they are crap, they don’t know what they are doing, it’s useless - they don’t sleep, and they really know.

It will not work to scare them with a list of possible consequences for the online industry in Russia, because this has long been no longer a hypothetical possibility, but an objective reality. And this reality is no longer a consequence, but the cause of accelerating lawlessness.

Defend Nginx and Igor Sysoev, perhaps, and succeed. How did it happen, for example, recently to defend Ivan Golunov. But this is a private, albeit happy, case. This does not change the established practice of falsifying criminal cases.

So the outcome of the attack on Nginx and Sysoev, whatever it may be, will not change the conditions in which it matured and occurred.

If you think and figure out what the online industry can expect and what to prepare for, then wait for the deterioration and prepare for the worst.

It will also be useful to understand where the threat comes from. And they are to blame - at least in the case of Rambler and Nginx, not the siloviki pointed out by Kryuchkov. They are, in this case, the physical body. The force that set this body in motion is the oligarchy, quite the civilian owners and beneficiaries of big business.

And this is perhaps the most underestimated - and most important - lesson to be learned from the Rambler attack on Nginx. Psychologically, of course, the natural desire to see a threat in some kind of “alien” — the state, the security forces — is understandable. Whereas the unpleasant truth is that, literally, “their own” came after Igor Sysoev - his former employers, in whose hands the state machine is only a tool.

And everything that happens is a function of the toughening competition in a market with inexorably collapsing prospects.

In a growing market, competition is the engine of progress. But there is nowhere else to grow: the real incomes of the Russian population have been declining for the fifth year in a row, with almost zero growth in its population.

In other words, business in Russia is turning into a zero-sum game.
And competition in these conditions means redistribution. The sharks of capitalism are called sharks because they cannot stop, otherwise they will drown.

If, in search of where else to squeeze money from, the oligarchs have already reached the former employees of the companies they own, having dug into the project, the roots of which go back to 2002, it means that the pieces have already been taken apart. And, therefore, after the squabble will begin for pieces of an even smaller size.

If now the oligarchy is ready to cling to Nginx worth $650 million, it means that the traffic light has already switched to yellow for all projects over $100 million, which (or whose beneficiaries) the security forces can reach with their long arms.

This is already a reality. And, if the existing conditions are not changed, then she will look into the smaller windows.

As the pie shrinks, the struggle of those who today have knives and forks in their hands will intensify for each piece - and if it comes to crumbs, they will not disdain them.

PS This text is post-reply to Deniskin's post.

P.S. From the comments:

dark host I think if all the IT people at the same time, as a sign of protest, resigned from the rambler, the rambler would have ended there.

alekciy This will not happen, because there are no trade unions.

vlsinitsyn IT workers need a union. And a collective agreement, in which such articles in the contract would not have the opportunity to appear.

EgorKotkin Right. And freelancers too. Sites like fl.ru and kwork have long been landowners who have occupied all the land in the market, and are trying to turn freelancers into their serfs.

Source: habr.com