I read Paul Syng's essay about 37signals owning the concept of "control" and as a long-term user and follower of the brand // products, I don't agree with the take.
The TL:DR of the article - Jason Fried and DHH built a successful company by staying independent, keeping things simple, and rejecting conventional Silicon Valley wisdom. Their customers say things like "I'm in control for the first time in years" and "I own my inbox again." Therefore, Syng concludes, 37signals owns control as a concept in the same way Volvo owns safety. Every decision they make flows from this positioning, whether they realize it or not.
The problem I have with this: it explains too much, too neatly.
Once you decide that a company deliberately owns a particular concept, you can interpret literally everything they do as reinforcing that concept. Did they remove features? Control through subtraction. Did they reject venture capital? Control over destiny. Did they launch one-time purchase software? Control through ownership. The theory becomes unfalsifiable because any evidence can be made to fit.
I have a simpler explanation: people like 37signals products for the same reason we like artisanal coffee, expensive mechanical keyboards, or whatever else serves as a marker of taste in our particular subcultures. As someone who uses and appreciates 37signals products, I can honestly say - we like being the kind of people who use and appreciate 37signals products.
The products themselves work and they work beautifully, and they work in a way others don’t, but that's almost beside the point.
When someone tells you they use Basecamp instead of Asana or Monday or Notion or any other baker’s dozen tools, or they use HEY instead of Superhuman et al, you immediately know something about them. You know they read books like "Rework" and "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work." They probably think most meetings are wasteful. They might have opinions about the correct number of hours in a work week. They definitely have opinions about venture capital. These are cultural markers, as clear as someone telling you they only buy fair trade coffee or they still use a fountain pen, or they only use Field Notes.
(Which I also do.)
Syng points out that customers describe 37signals products using language about control, and takes this as evidence that control is the concept being purchased. But people also describe Patagonia jackets as "durable" and Apple products as "intuitive" while they're buying their tribal memberships. The durability and intuitiveness are real - just like the control 37signals products provide is real - but they're not what's driving the purchase decision at any fundamental level.
Think about the actual mechanics of how someone ends up as a 37signals customer. They don't wake up one day and think "I need more control over my project management" and then systematically evaluate which software best delivers control as a concept. Even if they pretend that was in fact their process, what actually happens is more like this: they've been reading Jason Fried's writing for years, or in my case, following since the Bootstrapped Profitable and Proud days. They liked the swagger, the contrarianism, the implicit promise that you too could be one of the enlightened few who saw through the enterprise software bloat. Eventually they start a company or join a small team, and when it comes time to pick project management software, Basecamp feels like the obvious choice.
Of course we use Basecamp.
We're the kind of people who use Basecamp.
If 37Signals really owned control as a concept, you'd expect them to at least attempt to dominate any market where control matters. But they don't. Large enterprises, even ones that desperately want control over their data and processes, mostly don't use 37signals products. Syng tries to explain this away by saying enterprise purchasing is about "distribution of responsibility" rather than control, but this feels like special pleading. The simpler explanation is that 37signals products signal membership in a particular tribe, and that tribe is small, independent, contrarian-minded companies.
It’s the software version of a Black Flag tattoo.
(Which I also have.)
Look at who actually uses these products. Agencies, design firms, consulting practices, indie hackers, alt-tech companies - places where the founder has strong opinions about how things should be done. These are businesses that pride themselves on being different from normal companies. Using Basecamp or HEY is a way of signaling alignment with a particular business philosophy. It takes conviction to commit to HEY. And that conviction is a signal.
The identity theory explains why 37signals can get away with things other companies can’t: changing away from Basecamp or HEY would mean admitting you were wrong about the kind of person you are. It would mean joining the masses who use feature-rich mainstream tools. The social and psychological cost of that switch is much higher than the inconvenience of missing features.
This is why copying 37signals tactics without copying their cultural position fails. Other companies see the flat pricing or the feature minimalism or the opinionated marketing and think "we should do that too." Then they wonder why it doesn't work. The tactics only work if you've already established yourself as a cultural marker. You need people who want to be the kind of person who uses your product, and that takes years of consistent identity projection through writing, speaking, and public presence.
Jason Fried and DHH have spent two decades building a public persona around independence, contrarianism, and craft. They write books, give talks, maintain strong Twitter presences, and share their opinions on everything from work culture to F1. I don’t always agree with their opinions. I might disagree with a good deal more than 50% of them. But I know where they stand, and I know why. All of this creates a cultural context that makes their products into identity markers. You're buying into a worldview.
Does this mean the products don't matter? Obviously not. If Basecamp // HEY were shit, no amount of cultural cachet would save ‘em.
As a general rule, identity-based products need to be good enough that using them doesn't feel like a compromise. They don't need to be the absolute best at any particular dimension. They just need to be good enough that you can convince yourself you're using them for rational reasons, while the real reason is that they signal your membership in the tribe of people who get it.
In 37signals’ case, I genuinely believe that HEY is the best take on email currently on the market. I genuinely believe Basecamp is a better tool than Notion.
But honest to God, I’d probably still be using them either way.
The control theory makes 37signals sound like strategic geniuses who discovered a universal human need and built a business empire around it. The identity theory puts them in the right place (contrarian outgroup) at the right time (when Silicon Valley excess became a punchline) with the right personality (opinionated and articulate) to build a following.
I think the second story is more likely to be true.
Should 37signals care about this distinction? Probably not. Whether customers are buying control or identity or both, the company still works the same way. Keep doing what you're doing, stay true to the brand, don't try to please everyone. But for the rest of us trying to understand why some products succeed while others fail, I think the identity explanation is both simpler and more accurate. Sometimes people really do buy the thing for the thing itself. But more often, they buy it to signal who they are.
The TL:DR of the article - Jason Fried and DHH built a successful company by staying independent, keeping things simple, and rejecting conventional Silicon Valley wisdom. Their customers say things like "I'm in control for the first time in years" and "I own my inbox again." Therefore, Syng concludes, 37signals owns control as a concept in the same way Volvo owns safety. Every decision they make flows from this positioning, whether they realize it or not.
The problem I have with this: it explains too much, too neatly.
Once you decide that a company deliberately owns a particular concept, you can interpret literally everything they do as reinforcing that concept. Did they remove features? Control through subtraction. Did they reject venture capital? Control over destiny. Did they launch one-time purchase software? Control through ownership. The theory becomes unfalsifiable because any evidence can be made to fit.
I have a simpler explanation: people like 37signals products for the same reason we like artisanal coffee, expensive mechanical keyboards, or whatever else serves as a marker of taste in our particular subcultures. As someone who uses and appreciates 37signals products, I can honestly say - we like being the kind of people who use and appreciate 37signals products.
The products themselves work and they work beautifully, and they work in a way others don’t, but that's almost beside the point.
When someone tells you they use Basecamp instead of Asana or Monday or Notion or any other baker’s dozen tools, or they use HEY instead of Superhuman et al, you immediately know something about them. You know they read books like "Rework" and "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work." They probably think most meetings are wasteful. They might have opinions about the correct number of hours in a work week. They definitely have opinions about venture capital. These are cultural markers, as clear as someone telling you they only buy fair trade coffee or they still use a fountain pen, or they only use Field Notes.
(Which I also do.)
Syng points out that customers describe 37signals products using language about control, and takes this as evidence that control is the concept being purchased. But people also describe Patagonia jackets as "durable" and Apple products as "intuitive" while they're buying their tribal memberships. The durability and intuitiveness are real - just like the control 37signals products provide is real - but they're not what's driving the purchase decision at any fundamental level.
Think about the actual mechanics of how someone ends up as a 37signals customer. They don't wake up one day and think "I need more control over my project management" and then systematically evaluate which software best delivers control as a concept. Even if they pretend that was in fact their process, what actually happens is more like this: they've been reading Jason Fried's writing for years, or in my case, following since the Bootstrapped Profitable and Proud days. They liked the swagger, the contrarianism, the implicit promise that you too could be one of the enlightened few who saw through the enterprise software bloat. Eventually they start a company or join a small team, and when it comes time to pick project management software, Basecamp feels like the obvious choice.
Of course we use Basecamp.
We're the kind of people who use Basecamp.
If 37Signals really owned control as a concept, you'd expect them to at least attempt to dominate any market where control matters. But they don't. Large enterprises, even ones that desperately want control over their data and processes, mostly don't use 37signals products. Syng tries to explain this away by saying enterprise purchasing is about "distribution of responsibility" rather than control, but this feels like special pleading. The simpler explanation is that 37signals products signal membership in a particular tribe, and that tribe is small, independent, contrarian-minded companies.
It’s the software version of a Black Flag tattoo.
(Which I also have.)
Look at who actually uses these products. Agencies, design firms, consulting practices, indie hackers, alt-tech companies - places where the founder has strong opinions about how things should be done. These are businesses that pride themselves on being different from normal companies. Using Basecamp or HEY is a way of signaling alignment with a particular business philosophy. It takes conviction to commit to HEY. And that conviction is a signal.
The identity theory explains why 37signals can get away with things other companies can’t: changing away from Basecamp or HEY would mean admitting you were wrong about the kind of person you are. It would mean joining the masses who use feature-rich mainstream tools. The social and psychological cost of that switch is much higher than the inconvenience of missing features.
This is why copying 37signals tactics without copying their cultural position fails. Other companies see the flat pricing or the feature minimalism or the opinionated marketing and think "we should do that too." Then they wonder why it doesn't work. The tactics only work if you've already established yourself as a cultural marker. You need people who want to be the kind of person who uses your product, and that takes years of consistent identity projection through writing, speaking, and public presence.
Jason Fried and DHH have spent two decades building a public persona around independence, contrarianism, and craft. They write books, give talks, maintain strong Twitter presences, and share their opinions on everything from work culture to F1. I don’t always agree with their opinions. I might disagree with a good deal more than 50% of them. But I know where they stand, and I know why. All of this creates a cultural context that makes their products into identity markers. You're buying into a worldview.
Does this mean the products don't matter? Obviously not. If Basecamp // HEY were shit, no amount of cultural cachet would save ‘em.
As a general rule, identity-based products need to be good enough that using them doesn't feel like a compromise. They don't need to be the absolute best at any particular dimension. They just need to be good enough that you can convince yourself you're using them for rational reasons, while the real reason is that they signal your membership in the tribe of people who get it.
In 37signals’ case, I genuinely believe that HEY is the best take on email currently on the market. I genuinely believe Basecamp is a better tool than Notion.
But honest to God, I’d probably still be using them either way.
The control theory makes 37signals sound like strategic geniuses who discovered a universal human need and built a business empire around it. The identity theory puts them in the right place (contrarian outgroup) at the right time (when Silicon Valley excess became a punchline) with the right personality (opinionated and articulate) to build a following.
I think the second story is more likely to be true.
Should 37signals care about this distinction? Probably not. Whether customers are buying control or identity or both, the company still works the same way. Keep doing what you're doing, stay true to the brand, don't try to please everyone. But for the rest of us trying to understand why some products succeed while others fail, I think the identity explanation is both simpler and more accurate. Sometimes people really do buy the thing for the thing itself. But more often, they buy it to signal who they are.