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Was the money we made you not enough? Seriously? 🧵

Before we start: we're Pyro (pyro.host). We built Modrinth's Hosting at the start, then they dropped us. So no, we're not neutral, and we won't pretend to be. But this acquisition is bad, and people deserve to know why.

If you missed it, Modrinth, the "independent, open source, community first" CurseForge alternative, just got bought by Spark Universe. Spark makes Essential Mod. Yeah, that Essential. The one half the modding scene has warned you off for years.

The deal closed in February. They sat on it until June. FOUR MONTHS. Their whole brand is "we're transparent," and they hid a change of ownership from the people who use the site for a third of a year.

"But it's still open source!" Sure, the code is. That's it. Open source doesn't cover your data, moderation, pricing, the roadmap, or who's deciding all of it. Plenty of open source projects are owned by companies that don't have your back. Modrinth's one now.

This is the founder who handed $800k back to investors in 2024 because the "venture path wasn't right for us." Two years later he sells the whole thing to a for-profit studio. Spin it how you like, it's not the scrappy community first project they keep selling you.

One more time, for the record: no, we don't like Modrinth, and we think we've earned that. But you don't need our baggage to see it. A platform built on being creator first just got bought by a company whose entire model is the opposite. That's the problem, with us or without us.