I don't disagree with any of these points in principle, but I think the message is somewhat undermined by holding up Amazon as an example of non-enshittified corporate practice. Amazon has always...
I don't disagree with any of these points in principle, but I think the message is somewhat undermined by holding up Amazon as an example of non-enshittified corporate practice. Amazon has always had the model of the Flywheel at its core, which is a virtuous cycle (no moral endorsement, it's just a term) that uses a positive customer experience to tie them to the platform and get more money out of them. They've merely recognized that they have to obey point three, and take only as much money/value from the system as they can without impacting growth.
Amazon actually hasn’t done a great job on part 3 at this point. There are whole categories of items I simply won’t buy on Amazon anymore because the quality control is so bad. Etsy has been...
Amazon actually hasn’t done a great job on part 3 at this point. There are whole categories of items I simply won’t buy on Amazon anymore because the quality control is so bad. Etsy has been ruined by these low-tier dropshipper shops too.
Well, part of their calculus is that they're optimizing for the majority. They'll drive away some shoppers (you) but as long as they can retain the vast bulk of people who are okay with buying...
Well, part of their calculus is that they're optimizing for the majority. They'll drive away some shoppers (you) but as long as they can retain the vast bulk of people who are okay with buying from nonsense-named LLCs reselling Alibaba lots then they'll still be doing all right.
Before Facebook we were really used to the cycle of “social media” sites burning out such as MySpace, Slashdot, etc. Facebook has somehow managed to stay in the sun longer than most, partially...
Before Facebook we were really used to the cycle of “social media” sites burning out such as MySpace, Slashdot, etc. Facebook has somehow managed to stay in the sun longer than most, partially from playing hardball and buying competitors, partially because the influx of new internet users is saturated, partially because of success with the secondary two-sided market with advertising. Since 2011 or so you haven’t seen new social media sites get funding in the U.S. so the dynamism has switched to other major markets like China. (Your exit plan today would to be get bought by Facebook like WhatsApp did for a $15 billion payday, but you’d better believe Facebook sees that as extortion and will shape the environment in any way so that it doesn’t have to do that on a regular basis.)
What burns me up that people don’t get is the sad story of communication apps: there’s been CuSeeMe, ICQ, Paltalk, AIM, Facebook Messenger, Apple’s Messaging app, WhatsApp, WeChat, Go2Meeting, WebEx, Zoom, 12+ messaging apps from Google that were not compatible and were mostly killed, Skype, Skype for Business, MSN Messenger, Lynq, Microsoft Teams and other apps from Microsoft I’ve forgot.
People don’t think it is strange that a T-Mobile customer can text an AT&T customer or that the user of an HTC phone can call an iPhone user but once a computer gets involved people see interoperation as somewhere between science fiction and putting their hand in a toilet (judged by the complete indifference people have had to XMPP outside law enforcement and military.)
You’d think two-sided markets would lead to a state of stasis where competitors could not get in and in the case of Facebook that does seem to be the case, but history shows that a product like Go2Meeting or Skype starts out in a honeymoon phase where they understand the application really has to work and particularly has to have a good onboarding experience, has to work with whatever microphone and camera you have, etc. Once something like that is successful though, they don’t do the minimal work to keep the application working and pretty soon the conversation is “You should try X. X really works, just like (AIM|Skype|Go2Meeting) really used to work.” and then a few years later it will be “You should try Y, Y really works the way X used to work.”
The companies coming out with X, Y, and Z seem to have little insight into this process and neither do the end users. If there was real competition for clients and servers, however, this cycle of complacency would be broken and we might not be in the case of, 25 years after AIM, having communication apps that seem “exactly like AIM but trading AOL for Facebook”.
I suppose it’s the premise of the article that Mike sets out (I.e., you’re a CEO after your company has taken VC money), but it’s interesting that Mike doesn’t mention what he’s (arguably) done...
I suppose it’s the premise of the article that Mike sets out (I.e., you’re a CEO after your company has taken VC money), but it’s interesting that Mike doesn’t mention what he’s (arguably) done with TechDirt, or what you’ve done here: focus on only growing sustainably in the first place. Don’t take investor $, and all of a sudden some of these rules disappear while a lot of the others become easier to follow.
For instance
Find ways to make money that don’t undermine the community or the experience.
A donation based model seems to have worked pretty OK for the last few years here given modest server costs, and (hopefully) low moderation requirements. But it would never fly if someone was squeezing for ROI
I've definitely sent $$$ to Techdirt and to Reddit, mainly because I liked them and wanted to support what they were doing. I got out of the Techdirt habit but lately I'm reading them more again....
I've definitely sent $$$ to Techdirt and to Reddit, mainly because I liked them and wanted to support what they were doing.
I got out of the Techdirt habit but lately I'm reading them more again. I had forgotten how much I enjoy that site.
I've found fewer gold-worthy posts on Reddit as mobile users have taken over so my frequency of sending money to Reddit for awards was already waning probably in parallel with my waning interest in it. During the pandemic when many were home and on keyboards, I was gilding left and right. Now it's fairly rare and once my current coins are gone, I probably won't buy anymore.
I was all in on paying Reddit a monthly tithe to access the "Premium" Reddit experience. I only stopped when they insisted that they couldn't do monthly billing anymore. Was it cheaper to get a...
I've definitely sent $$$ to Techdirt and to Reddit, mainly because I liked them and wanted to support what they were doing.
I was all in on paying Reddit a monthly tithe to access the "Premium" Reddit experience. I only stopped when they insisted that they couldn't do monthly billing anymore. Was it cheaper to get a year at a time? Yeah, but I could easily justify less than a value meal every month for Reddit features in my budget, while $100+ all at once was never going to happen because I just don't like how that feels.
I guess I liked having the power to walk away at any time if I chose. Maybe that was why they swapped things up and stopped doing monthly, but I would have remained a monthly subscriber for years longer than I was if they hadn't decided to try and lock me into a yearly commitment. I should have known then that the site was over, who would tell a customer to fuck off rather than let them continue to give them money every month? Reddit apparently.
I had no idea that they did that! Wow. Good call on your part!
I was all in on paying Reddit a monthly tithe to access the "Premium" Reddit experience. I only stopped when they insisted that they couldn't do monthly billing anymore.
I had no idea that they did that! Wow. Good call on your part!
When it comes to employment there is the concept of "passion tax." When people are passionate about something they'll do it for less payment. I've heard this is the reason why a lot of...
When it comes to employment there is the concept of "passion tax." When people are passionate about something they'll do it for less payment. I've heard this is the reason why a lot of aviation-related jobs pay less than you'd expect.
Something quite similar exists with social media. Users that are passionate about a platform will create a lot of value for a platform (e.g., reddit mods). When that passion is killed all the value disappears. Companies that chase ways to extract value don't realize they might be killing the entire value in the process.
It would be funny and a statement to have the subreddits protesting include this link as the only content allowed to be posted.
I don't disagree with any of these points in principle, but I think the message is somewhat undermined by holding up Amazon as an example of non-enshittified corporate practice. Amazon has always had the model of the Flywheel at its core, which is a virtuous cycle (no moral endorsement, it's just a term) that uses a positive customer experience to tie them to the platform and get more money out of them. They've merely recognized that they have to obey point three, and take only as much money/value from the system as they can without impacting growth.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4398725
That paper is a good read about how their supposed consumer-friendly practices are unfriendly in the long term.
Amazon actually hasn’t done a great job on part 3 at this point. There are whole categories of items I simply won’t buy on Amazon anymore because the quality control is so bad. Etsy has been ruined by these low-tier dropshipper shops too.
Well, part of their calculus is that they're optimizing for the majority. They'll drive away some shoppers (you) but as long as they can retain the vast bulk of people who are okay with buying from nonsense-named LLCs reselling Alibaba lots then they'll still be doing all right.
Before Facebook we were really used to the cycle of “social media” sites burning out such as MySpace, Slashdot, etc. Facebook has somehow managed to stay in the sun longer than most, partially from playing hardball and buying competitors, partially because the influx of new internet users is saturated, partially because of success with the secondary two-sided market with advertising. Since 2011 or so you haven’t seen new social media sites get funding in the U.S. so the dynamism has switched to other major markets like China. (Your exit plan today would to be get bought by Facebook like WhatsApp did for a $15 billion payday, but you’d better believe Facebook sees that as extortion and will shape the environment in any way so that it doesn’t have to do that on a regular basis.)
What burns me up that people don’t get is the sad story of communication apps: there’s been CuSeeMe, ICQ, Paltalk, AIM, Facebook Messenger, Apple’s Messaging app, WhatsApp, WeChat, Go2Meeting, WebEx, Zoom, 12+ messaging apps from Google that were not compatible and were mostly killed, Skype, Skype for Business, MSN Messenger, Lynq, Microsoft Teams and other apps from Microsoft I’ve forgot.
People don’t think it is strange that a T-Mobile customer can text an AT&T customer or that the user of an HTC phone can call an iPhone user but once a computer gets involved people see interoperation as somewhere between science fiction and putting their hand in a toilet (judged by the complete indifference people have had to XMPP outside law enforcement and military.)
You’d think two-sided markets would lead to a state of stasis where competitors could not get in and in the case of Facebook that does seem to be the case, but history shows that a product like Go2Meeting or Skype starts out in a honeymoon phase where they understand the application really has to work and particularly has to have a good onboarding experience, has to work with whatever microphone and camera you have, etc. Once something like that is successful though, they don’t do the minimal work to keep the application working and pretty soon the conversation is “You should try X. X really works, just like (AIM|Skype|Go2Meeting) really used to work.” and then a few years later it will be “You should try Y, Y really works the way X used to work.”
The companies coming out with X, Y, and Z seem to have little insight into this process and neither do the end users. If there was real competition for clients and servers, however, this cycle of complacency would be broken and we might not be in the case of, 25 years after AIM, having communication apps that seem “exactly like AIM but trading AOL for Facebook”.
I suppose it’s the premise of the article that Mike sets out (I.e., you’re a CEO after your company has taken VC money), but it’s interesting that Mike doesn’t mention what he’s (arguably) done with TechDirt, or what you’ve done here: focus on only growing sustainably in the first place. Don’t take investor $, and all of a sudden some of these rules disappear while a lot of the others become easier to follow.
For instance
A donation based model seems to have worked pretty OK for the last few years here given modest server costs, and (hopefully) low moderation requirements. But it would never fly if someone was squeezing for ROI
I've definitely sent $$$ to Techdirt and to Reddit, mainly because I liked them and wanted to support what they were doing.
I got out of the Techdirt habit but lately I'm reading them more again. I had forgotten how much I enjoy that site.
I've found fewer gold-worthy posts on Reddit as mobile users have taken over so my frequency of sending money to Reddit for awards was already waning probably in parallel with my waning interest in it. During the pandemic when many were home and on keyboards, I was gilding left and right. Now it's fairly rare and once my current coins are gone, I probably won't buy anymore.
I was all in on paying Reddit a monthly tithe to access the "Premium" Reddit experience. I only stopped when they insisted that they couldn't do monthly billing anymore. Was it cheaper to get a year at a time? Yeah, but I could easily justify less than a value meal every month for Reddit features in my budget, while $100+ all at once was never going to happen because I just don't like how that feels.
I guess I liked having the power to walk away at any time if I chose. Maybe that was why they swapped things up and stopped doing monthly, but I would have remained a monthly subscriber for years longer than I was if they hadn't decided to try and lock me into a yearly commitment. I should have known then that the site was over, who would tell a customer to fuck off rather than let them continue to give them money every month? Reddit apparently.
I had no idea that they did that! Wow. Good call on your part!
When it comes to employment there is the concept of "passion tax." When people are passionate about something they'll do it for less payment. I've heard this is the reason why a lot of aviation-related jobs pay less than you'd expect.
Something quite similar exists with social media. Users that are passionate about a platform will create a lot of value for a platform (e.g., reddit mods). When that passion is killed all the value disappears. Companies that chase ways to extract value don't realize they might be killing the entire value in the process.
I do! Wow, I sure thought that was cool at the time!