It feels like not a month goes by without writing an obituary for another European tech media title. After the demise of TechCrunch Europe, another one bites the dust. At the end of this month, The Next Web Conference and its media title under the same name will be gone. Done, kaput.
This isn't just sad. It's completely fucked up.
Truth be told, I had always wondered why Patrick and Boris - the founders of The Next Web and its conference - sold to the Financial Times. Not just because I've always been a little jealous (of course I have), but also because FT always seemed like the exact kind of corporate player that would kill the brand the moment it was no longer useful to them.
And let's be honest: the Financial Times is the farthest thing from TNW's cool brand experience, its bold design, and the buzzing community it built. FT has none of that sexiness.
Buying TNW was never going to make them sexy either. It's telling that Sifted - itself an FT franchise, and essentially TNW's competitor - was the one to break the news. Why would FT keep two similar titles doing the same thing in the first place?
Under FT, TNW shifted from international consumer tech coverage back to B2B startups in Europe... a field Sifted already owned. And frankly, Sifted just did it better. So the overlap never made any sense.
As we say in Dutch: this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Of course, the conference itself took a massive hit during COVID, like every major tech event. But I always thought TNW would rise again, phoenix-style. And while it did try, the magic was gone.
At the last edition, I was on-site for just about an hour and a half at the NDSM wharf. It felt stale -- sad, even. Everyone I talked to said the same thing: this is the end. And they were right.
Of course, the sponsor budgets have shifted. Every corporate wants "AI" front and centre, with no leftover attention for anything else. But this is precisely the moment when Europe needs a strong tech ecosystem more than ever. With global competition - some might call it a trade war - at our doorstep, we require deep tech breakthroughs, thriving fintech, great AI companies, and climate and impact startups to tackle the massive issues in front of us.
TNW was a competitor, yes, but we never saw them as one. We were always friends -- supporting their conferences, promoting their work. I moderated at TNW. I loved it. Loved it.
Not only that, but I relied on the conference. Every May or June come, I knew I'd block out a week for TNW: for networking, for meeting old friends I only ever saw there. Now, that's gone. Super sad emoji face.
For us at Silicon Canals, this makes us reflect, too. What does the future look like for European tech media and conferences?
We're already working on a paywall to keep our journalism sustainable. Sorry not sorry Mike Butcher, that it makes you log in every time...
But maybe this is also the moment to seize a bigger opportunity: to create a flagship Netherlands-based tech event that picks up where TNW left off.
Sure, competing with the likes of VivaTech in Paris is daunting -- I never understood why they always scheduled it against TNW, anyway. But, as we say in Dutch: one person dead, another's bread. Maybe it's time for a new, bottom-up, hellah fresh super-duper awesome Dutch startup event.
Who knows -- perhaps we'll even do it with some of TNW's former people.
Which brings me back to FT. Thank you -- and I mean this wholeheartedly -- for completely and utterly fucking up The Next Web.
If I could throw a middle finger emoji into this column, I would do it right here, right now. Because you deserve it.
I don't usually point fingers like that - but this time, I will. You messed up. You killed one of the coolest, best things we had in the Netherlands. In Europe's startup scene, for that matter.
Maybe, likely, possibly you corporate drones won't lose any sleep over it. But the ecosystem will. And that's on you.