this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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[–] deong 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I don't doubt that these rules will help you avoid killing your community. But Reddit can't just not kill their community. They have to not kill their community while simultaneously becoming extremely profitable. And the article's advice on the second part of that is just "come up with a brilliant solution that no one else has been able to think of". Cool. Is that all there is to it?

Example: He says, "never charge for something that was once free". What advice does he have for you to do instead?

Instead, always look for something new that is worth paying for above and beyond what you already offered. Make it so that it’s worthwhile for people to pay, rather than acting like they need to pay you for the things they got for free until now. Give them a reason to pay gladly, don’t try to pressure them into coughing up money grudgingly.

Got it. Come up with a business idea that people will be happy to pay you for. If I could do that, why didn't I do it 10 years ago instead of borrowing a billion dollars in VC money for 10 years while I hemorrhaged cash?

I'm a big fan of Mike's writing, but this article presumes that these companies should just more or less continue as-is. And the whole reason why they're where they are is that that's not an option anymore. And to the extent that the article recognizes that, it may as well just recommend prayer. That's about as likely to yield a result as "come up with a brilliant idea your users will all happily pay you for" and it has the advantage of being immediately actionable.