<story><title>Stop trying to make social networks succeed</title><url>https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>0xParlay</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything.&lt;p&gt;As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool.&lt;p&gt;Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And if you do manage to grow, acquisitions that amount to life changing generational wealth is hard to ignore - and it&amp;#x27;s not like the future of your product is guaranteed.&lt;p&gt;Wall street needs returns. Tech is just the first to adapt to the loot-box economy but it&amp;#x27;ll spread. Anything that can be turned into a subscription model will be. Air-bags to air conditioning. We will own nothing and like it.</text></item><item><author>vinyl7</author><text>It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There&amp;#x27;s the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. &lt;i&gt;New thing&lt;/i&gt; comes out and I&amp;#x27;m just meh about it, because it&amp;#x27;ll bust soon enough so it&amp;#x27;s not worth getting invested in it. Or &lt;i&gt;new version&lt;/i&gt; will come out next year and break what I was used to, or it&amp;#x27;ll be an implicit subscription of having to buy new thing every year. But it&amp;#x27;s not really going to fix itself because it seems like everyone else loves the dopamine rush from the hype cycle, and they don&amp;#x27;t really seem to care about how ephemeral everything is.</text></item><item><author>mattbuilds</author><text>I think the VC world&amp;#x27;s obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don&amp;#x27;t know when this switch flipped, but I&amp;#x27;ve felt it gradually building up over time.&lt;p&gt;Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to achieve an unnatural growth is probably not good for both the quality of the product and the long term stability of it.&lt;p&gt;I would love to see more niche things grow organically and fill a role for some people, at some time and not try to be everything for everyone. Because when that&amp;#x27;s the case, does anyone really enjoy it?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Buttons840</author><text>A lot of people reject political ideas (i.e., regulations) because they have an idealized love for our free markets. Meanwhile small &lt;i&gt;profitable&lt;/i&gt; companies are going out of business to larger &lt;i&gt;unprofitable&lt;/i&gt; companies.&lt;p&gt;It begs the question, how did the larger unprofitable company become large in the first place? It wasn&amp;#x27;t by delivering goods and services at a fair price, it was by currying favor with those already in power. The romantic view that to succeed in a free market you sell goods and services at a fair price doesn&amp;#x27;t hold.</text></comment>
<story><title>Stop trying to make social networks succeed</title><url>https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>0xParlay</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything.&lt;p&gt;As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool.&lt;p&gt;Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And if you do manage to grow, acquisitions that amount to life changing generational wealth is hard to ignore - and it&amp;#x27;s not like the future of your product is guaranteed.&lt;p&gt;Wall street needs returns. Tech is just the first to adapt to the loot-box economy but it&amp;#x27;ll spread. Anything that can be turned into a subscription model will be. Air-bags to air conditioning. We will own nothing and like it.</text></item><item><author>vinyl7</author><text>It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There&amp;#x27;s the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. &lt;i&gt;New thing&lt;/i&gt; comes out and I&amp;#x27;m just meh about it, because it&amp;#x27;ll bust soon enough so it&amp;#x27;s not worth getting invested in it. Or &lt;i&gt;new version&lt;/i&gt; will come out next year and break what I was used to, or it&amp;#x27;ll be an implicit subscription of having to buy new thing every year. But it&amp;#x27;s not really going to fix itself because it seems like everyone else loves the dopamine rush from the hype cycle, and they don&amp;#x27;t really seem to care about how ephemeral everything is.</text></item><item><author>mattbuilds</author><text>I think the VC world&amp;#x27;s obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don&amp;#x27;t know when this switch flipped, but I&amp;#x27;ve felt it gradually building up over time.&lt;p&gt;Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to achieve an unnatural growth is probably not good for both the quality of the product and the long term stability of it.&lt;p&gt;I would love to see more niche things grow organically and fill a role for some people, at some time and not try to be everything for everyone. Because when that&amp;#x27;s the case, does anyone really enjoy it?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>leereeves</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve come to believe this is just the latest version of a very old (and illegal) tactic: predatory pricing.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Predatory_pricing&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Predatory_pricing&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>