So what should they have done? Continued running the company until the day they died? Then what? Converted it to a non-profit/co-op/etc. and effectively donated 90% of their net worth and tens of millions of dollars (a tall order for most people)?
Your response seems disproportionate, maybe you read a bit beyond what I actually wrote?
To respond to your question anyway: I don't really like telling people what to do (don't tread on anyone and all that) but if it was up to me to choose what they did, then not selling the company to Epic, or any other hungry hungry corpos, would have been a default stance.
Considering how successful the platform is/was -- and the excellent financial situation they apparently were in for the last decade -- it seems like selling the company to Epic (a random and unnatural fit) would be a gamble at best. There's a negligible chance that it could have ended well for the artists or the users but I'm sure it's ending well for some of those involved.
Also, yeah, convert your business to a not-for-profit or hand it down to the employees when you're dying / done with it. That sounds like the sort of thing that makes the world a better place, which is commendable.
