I always come back to MacKaye’s discussion about friends who got record deals and mostly ended up being miserable from the whole thing. If you hear him tell it, Fugazi choosing to forgo their gigantic offer really ended up being as much practicality as anything. They didn’t trust the other folks to handle their business and didn’t want to give up control.
Naturally, other people will frame it entirely as some sort of principle-based sacrifice, but it’s worth considering that staying out of the shark-infested waters has its practical benefits.
