> businesses that made income by selling goods or services to customers were just called businesses, not lifestyle businesses
No, they were called shops. Where the business stops working without the owner-manager’s labor. “Business” referred to industrial-scale activity. (Before the industrial revolution, “commerce” was the broad term including trade merchants and shopkeepers.)
Similar to the industrial revolution’s change in nomenclature, the advent of modern computing has delineated small businesses, which include shops and shop-like tech firms, from enterprises, which are industry-like ones. Mom-and-pops thinking of themselves as businesses is a modern phenomenon.
If the owner-manager of Delphi goes home for the night, automotive parts do not stop being made. If the owner-manager of JBS goes home, McDonald’s still gets their hamburger patties. Semiconductors. Raw ore. Train wheels. All of those things were enterprise businesses, not shops, long before computers were heard of
Your response is through the same exact lens being critiqued. Even today there’s a vast economy of businesses, not shops, that fulfill key parts of the world economy and aren’t building for an exit. The idea that that’s weird/lifestyle is a modern, SV VC phenomenon and has nothing to do with computing nor the industrial revolution at all
This is obvious enough to most people that we sometimes wonder why we call startups businesses. Really they’re a new model of offshore R&D which often amounts to a hole into which to pour capital speculatively in hopes it will grow a tree
> “Business” referred to industrial-scale activity. (Before the industrial revolution, “commerce” was the broad term including trade merchants and shopkeepers.)
That sounds very weird to me because OED has plenty of meanings not related to industrial-scale activity that predate the industrial revolution. For example,
"In general sense: action which occupies time, demands attention and labour; esp. serious occupation, work, as opposed to pleasure or recreation.
c1400 Apol. Loll. 3 Hatyng to be enpliȝed wiþ seculer bisines. 1532 More Confut. Tindale Wks. 826/1 Occupied in honorable businesse. 1600 C. Percy in Shaks. C. Praise 38 Pestred with contrie businesse. 1653 Walton Angler Ep. Ded. 3 To give rest to your mind, and devest your self of your more serious business. ..."
And there's more of those where this came from, like "a task appointed or undertaken; a person's official duty, part or province; function, occupation" (dating back to Chaucer).
No, they were called shops. Where the business stops working without the owner-manager’s labor. “Business” referred to industrial-scale activity. (Before the industrial revolution, “commerce” was the broad term including trade merchants and shopkeepers.)
Similar to the industrial revolution’s change in nomenclature, the advent of modern computing has delineated small businesses, which include shops and shop-like tech firms, from enterprises, which are industry-like ones. Mom-and-pops thinking of themselves as businesses is a modern phenomenon.