Edit: imo, just another owner, a yawn for most employees/contractors. Part of the reason for the spin, combined with the need to placate the new owner.
*EDIT: And before anyone pushes out a narrative: The financial troubles that the magazine faced happened well before Regent's appearance, and their acquisition has kept the magazine alive up until now.
TC was so completely op 20 years ago, it was ridiculous. Had a tiny startup back then, not even in the US and all of a sudden started getting calls from VCs, including Bessemer and alike. Turns out there was a 3-line mention on the TC. He just asked if anyone heard of us ... lol. Good times.
> In March 2025, Regent acquired Foundry, the owner of technology publications such as PC World, Macworld, and InfoWorld, from International Data Group and acquired TechCrunch from Yahoo!.
I doubt this is a “new era” for TC. At this point, it’s more of a brand than an impactful media outlet. Maybe Regent will just squeeze out whatever SEO juice is left.
The change of tone in Tech Crunch over the last 5 years was something that I feel personally sad about.
I was a long-time reader, and being in a peripheral place where we looked up to the American companies, TC sounded very optimistic with their coverage, bringing success stories, talking with founders, and most importantly, being on this industry radar, at least from the standpoint of a more journalistic and general audience level.
During the latest years, TC became a bit bitter around the industry and forgot the sea of small companies and scale-ups, and started to be more political and critical, and the least being a good thing in a certain way, probably does not have the ideological muscle to do it like the more mainstream media. In other words, if I want to check some critique, I would go to some independent and ideological shop and get the straight point, then some sugar-coated criticism.
> During the latest years, TC became a bit bitter around the industry
If that's true, it accurately reflects what I see as societies changing attitudes to the industry, driven the enshiffication of tech, privacy scandals, degrading of work conditions and political actions by certain tech leaders.
Maybe I come from a different perspective. In my case, the technology industry was a gigantic enabler for societal mobility, social ascention, education, and a way to connect to my community, where technology is important for their economic ascent as well.
Of course I am not trying to rationalize their side that is harmful for several societies, but at least for me, TC used to be the place where I could find companies doing something useful for a couple of people.
PersonallyI would pay a service like TC circa 2014-2017 that is a directory of start-ups/scale-ups and bring some great digest about the industry in a more nuanced view in terms of capabilities and new companies.
This phrase is a good example of it, as though every bad business decision were somehow part of an inevitable war. Some companies make good decisions; some make bad ones; and it changes over time. But now we have to have someone in every comment section mention this "inevitability", which just has a chilling effect on perception of the industry.
> which just has a chilling effect on perception of the industry
I see what you're saying, but your message implies that this perception of the industry isn't understandable/fair on a personal level and/or that it doesn't reflect the trajectory the industry has taken. Do you feel the perception among consumers is not earned, or that it is not "fair" for people to feel this way as the tools and places people use to use change, switch to subscriptions, harvest ever more data, fight against ad blocking technology, etc.?
This isn't the fault of the tech journalists in my opinion, their bitterness and the tech industry's perception is a symptom of a shared root cause in my opinion.
I feel that if “you’re the marketing arm” of a company you should not also try to be the oversight agency as well.
That’s someone else’s job. Injecting politics might sound like it “complements” the product but I don’t think it does in this case and rather distracts from the “core mission”.
The "tech journalist who hates tech" is a recent phenomenon and present on most corporate tech publications. It's weird. You don't see it elsewhere. Imagine a car magazine that just rags on all cars or endlessly complains about carbon emissions.
Here is just a sample of 5 articles written by a NYT tech journalist:
- There’s Nothing to Like in Facebook’s Plans to Hook Our Kids
- The Maps That Steer Us Wrong
- Apple’s Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell
- Why Tesla’s ‘Beta Testing’ Puts the Public at Risk
- The Assault on Our Privacy Is Being Conducted in Private
Pretty much every article is how some tech company or piece of tech is bad. That's fine if you believe that, but then why would you be interested in a tech publication? If you're not a fan of guns, why read a gun publication?
It's just weird. It's part of a growing trend where there are decisions and a narrative pushed against the desires of consumers. No one wants this crap. It's expensive self sabotage and I never got an answer as to why.
There are quite a lot of people who write/talk about video games or movies who are openly negative about much of what is produced.
Although I agree there is probably a heavier slant towards negativity when discussing tech. I share some of the skepticism about AI but it's still potentially very exciting which you don't get from a lot of commentators.
Maybe I wouldn't use the umbrella term "tech journalist who hates tech" because I can see where comes from the need for public scrutiny that every big industry faces when becoming influential (e.g., tobacco, food, alcoholic beverages, etc.), and I think we as a society need to acknowledge that technology enjoyed one of the biggest public good wills without any kind of critique (not criticism).
I'm OK with the articles around privacy, political influence, power affluency, and surveillance, but when this becomes the main agenda for a publication that has as a target public starttups, VCs, and other parts of their ecosystem, it's hard to stick with that. In other words, I feel better seeing that kind of content in a more nuanced and in-depth way in The Atlantic, NYT or other independent media than in a publication that does not have that pedigree.
I still appreciate TC’s coverage and style quite a lot. The level of overall enshittification in regards to quality and UX is rather moderate. For a 20 year old news outlet with various owners throughout the years, in an industry with rapid, constant changes, that’s an achievement.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 77.5 ms ] threadEdit: imo, just another owner, a yawn for most employees/contractors. Part of the reason for the spin, combined with the need to placate the new owner.
The closest similarity I could see based from Regent's past is Sunset magazine, which still seems to be doing well & printing physical issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_(magazine)#Sale_to_Rege...
*EDIT: And before anyone pushes out a narrative: The financial troubles that the magazine faced happened well before Regent's appearance, and their acquisition has kept the magazine alive up until now.
Is TechCrunch still as hyped as it was 10 years ago?
I’m genuinely interested to know what others think.
VCs still seem to track CrunchBase, but that is a separate company.
TC was so completely op 20 years ago, it was ridiculous. Had a tiny startup back then, not even in the US and all of a sudden started getting calls from VCs, including Bessemer and alike. Turns out there was a 3-line mention on the TC. He just asked if anyone heard of us ... lol. Good times.
> In March 2025, Regent acquired Foundry, the owner of technology publications such as PC World, Macworld, and InfoWorld, from International Data Group and acquired TechCrunch from Yahoo!.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regent_LP
I was a long-time reader, and being in a peripheral place where we looked up to the American companies, TC sounded very optimistic with their coverage, bringing success stories, talking with founders, and most importantly, being on this industry radar, at least from the standpoint of a more journalistic and general audience level.
During the latest years, TC became a bit bitter around the industry and forgot the sea of small companies and scale-ups, and started to be more political and critical, and the least being a good thing in a certain way, probably does not have the ideological muscle to do it like the more mainstream media. In other words, if I want to check some critique, I would go to some independent and ideological shop and get the straight point, then some sugar-coated criticism.
If that's true, it accurately reflects what I see as societies changing attitudes to the industry, driven the enshiffication of tech, privacy scandals, degrading of work conditions and political actions by certain tech leaders.
Of course I am not trying to rationalize their side that is harmful for several societies, but at least for me, TC used to be the place where I could find companies doing something useful for a couple of people.
PersonallyI would pay a service like TC circa 2014-2017 that is a directory of start-ups/scale-ups and bring some great digest about the industry in a more nuanced view in terms of capabilities and new companies.
This phrase is a good example of it, as though every bad business decision were somehow part of an inevitable war. Some companies make good decisions; some make bad ones; and it changes over time. But now we have to have someone in every comment section mention this "inevitability", which just has a chilling effect on perception of the industry.
I see what you're saying, but your message implies that this perception of the industry isn't understandable/fair on a personal level and/or that it doesn't reflect the trajectory the industry has taken. Do you feel the perception among consumers is not earned, or that it is not "fair" for people to feel this way as the tools and places people use to use change, switch to subscriptions, harvest ever more data, fight against ad blocking technology, etc.?
This isn't the fault of the tech journalists in my opinion, their bitterness and the tech industry's perception is a symptom of a shared root cause in my opinion.
That’s someone else’s job. Injecting politics might sound like it “complements” the product but I don’t think it does in this case and rather distracts from the “core mission”.
Here is just a sample of 5 articles written by a NYT tech journalist:
- There’s Nothing to Like in Facebook’s Plans to Hook Our Kids
- The Maps That Steer Us Wrong
- Apple’s Illusion of Privacy Is Getting Harder to Sell
- Why Tesla’s ‘Beta Testing’ Puts the Public at Risk
- The Assault on Our Privacy Is Being Conducted in Private
Pretty much every article is how some tech company or piece of tech is bad. That's fine if you believe that, but then why would you be interested in a tech publication? If you're not a fan of guns, why read a gun publication?
It's just weird. It's part of a growing trend where there are decisions and a narrative pushed against the desires of consumers. No one wants this crap. It's expensive self sabotage and I never got an answer as to why.
https://mleverything.substack.com/p/tech-journalists-that-ha...
Although I agree there is probably a heavier slant towards negativity when discussing tech. I share some of the skepticism about AI but it's still potentially very exciting which you don't get from a lot of commentators.
I'm OK with the articles around privacy, political influence, power affluency, and surveillance, but when this becomes the main agenda for a publication that has as a target public starttups, VCs, and other parts of their ecosystem, it's hard to stick with that. In other words, I feel better seeing that kind of content in a more nuanced and in-depth way in The Atlantic, NYT or other independent media than in a publication that does not have that pedigree.