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I'm pretty sure you just described the first phase of every product's lifecycle. Everyone plays on the same field, early adopters start winning, everyone else f

I'm pretty sure you just described the first phase of every product's lifecycle. Everyone plays on the same field, early adopters start winning, everyone else follows... eventually you monetize it and it becomes clear that winners-win is a better business strategy than everyone wins. I don't know how to get around the business physics of this. Not sure anyone does. Tik-tok will eventually become the stagnant incumbent and it will try to suppress its challengers or it will die on the Vine.

daveguy 7y ago
> I don't know how to get around the business physics of this. It seems like the best way to get around the business physics is to switch from a business model to a federation model. Something like Mastodon where hosting costs are distributed and the algorithm can be tweaked for exposure rather than dollars earned for the hosting company. Of course there you have a chicken and egg networking problem and an ease of use problem.
foobarian 7y ago
Wow, my favorite new phrase this year: business physics. Thank you!
frogpelt 7y ago
> die on the Vine Clever. Also, I think you nailed it. YouTube is trying to curate their content. Any site that stays around for a while and wants to attract top advertising dollars does it. Reddit curates to an extent. Facebook is in all kinds of trouble for not curating.
- adminu 7y ago
  I thought Facebook is in trouble for over curating. They tweaked their algorithms for maximum stay on page time and thus promoted clickbaity content that now increasingly drives away longer-ish time users. FB user count is growing, sure, but not in its lucrative home market, the US.
  - HenryBemis 7y ago
    Click-baity and extremist content. Whether the extreme is more and more 80s PC games, cat videos, or politics, FB thrives but making you more passionate/engaged. Of course dedicating 1 hour per day talking about Saboteur II is not the same as participating in hate-groups, but this has become our problem, not FB's.
snake117 7y ago
Exactly. I was going to make this point myself, but you stated it better than I could. I can imagine a lot of prospective founders wanting to build an alternative platform to mitigate this issue, but then realize that further down the road they will ultimately become the very thing they set out to abolish in the first place. > I don't know how to get around the business physics of this. Not sure anyone does. Sometimes I think to myself that if their is less reliance on angel/VC funding from the very beginning, then founders could stay true to their vision. Like how Elon Musk refuses to make SpaceX a publicly traded company as it would squander the ultimate goal of colonizing mars. However, given how resource intensive it must be to process and store petabytes of video every year (exabytes in total), there is just no way around acquiring investment dollars.

daveguy 7y ago

> I don't know how to get around the business physics of this. It seems like the best way to get around the business physics is to switch from a business model to a federation model. Something like Mastodon where hosting costs are distributed and the algorithm can be tweaked for exposure rather than dollars earned for the hosting company. Of course there you have a chicken and egg networking problem and an ease of use problem.

foobarian 7y ago

Wow, my favorite new phrase this year: business physics. Thank you!

frogpelt 7y ago

> die on the Vine Clever. Also, I think you nailed it. YouTube is trying to curate their content. Any site that stays around for a while and wants to attract top advertising dollars does it. Reddit curates to an extent. Facebook is in all kinds of trouble for not curating.

adminu 7y ago
I thought Facebook is in trouble for over curating. They tweaked their algorithms for maximum stay on page time and thus promoted clickbaity content that now increasingly drives away longer-ish time users. FB user count is growing, sure, but not in its lucrative home market, the US.
- HenryBemis 7y ago
  Click-baity and extremist content. Whether the extreme is more and more 80s PC games, cat videos, or politics, FB thrives but making you more passionate/engaged. Of course dedicating 1 hour per day talking about Saboteur II is not the same as participating in hate-groups, but this has become our problem, not FB's.

snake117 7y ago

Exactly. I was going to make this point myself, but you stated it better than I could. I can imagine a lot of prospective founders wanting to build an alternative platform to mitigate this issue, but then realize that further down the road they will ultimately become the very thing they set out to abolish in the first place. > I don't know how to get around the business physics of this. Not sure anyone does. Sometimes I think to myself that if their is less reliance on angel/VC funding from the very beginning, then founders could stay true to their vision. Like how Elon Musk refuses to make SpaceX a publicly traded company as it would squander the ultimate goal of colonizing mars. However, given how resource intensive it must be to process and store petabytes of video every year (exabytes in total), there is just no way around acquiring investment dollars.