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I always feel dumb and like I'm missing some fundamental principle thinking about companies like GoDaddy. They provide a pretty undifferentiated commodity with

I always feel dumb and like I'm missing some fundamental principle thinking about companies like GoDaddy. They provide a pretty undifferentiated commodity with a relatively low bar to switching, don't seem particularly well run or trustworthy based among other things on events like this, and their brand and marketing give off a vaguely skeezy low-rent vibe. Is it just a perpetual motion machine of market sharing affording good marketing which then drives continued market share?

BobbyTables2 2y ago
Are banks not fairly commodified too? Did you move to a new bank after yours had a security breach? There are so many breaches these days, companies don’t even have liability — any damages can be blamed on another breach.
- roenxi 2y ago
  Not commodified as much as regulated. The personal data that banks collect is probably mandated by the government, so switching banks doesn't really change the risk someone faces. And probably a bunch of other things that would otherwise be competitive advantages for customers too. The lack of full reserve banks (or close enough too) despite what would be a reasonable level of customer demand, for example.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Is it just a perpetual motion machine of market sharing affording good marketing which then drives continued market share? Worse. It's a market where most of the customers are unsophisticated but price sensitive, so they tend to prefer the provider with the lowest apparent price, and then the big providers compete on the basis of who can present the lowest apparent price through the use of dark patters, misleading claims, bait and switch tactics and hidden fees. Example: GoDaddy provides a "free" site builder but if you use it the resulting site can't easily be extricated from their service and now you're locked in if you don't want to recreate your site. Meanwhile the price you were quoted for various services was an onboarding price and now that you've sunk a lot of time creating and improving the site you can't move, the price is going up. This is, incidentally, a major reason WordPress is so popular despite being fairly miserable. It makes it easy for unsophisticated users to get started and your site isn't tied to a particular host.

BobbyTables2 2y ago

Are banks not fairly commodified too? Did you move to a new bank after yours had a security breach? There are so many breaches these days, companies don’t even have liability — any damages can be blamed on another breach.

roenxi 2y ago
Not commodified as much as regulated. The personal data that banks collect is probably mandated by the government, so switching banks doesn't really change the risk someone faces. And probably a bunch of other things that would otherwise be competitive advantages for customers too. The lack of full reserve banks (or close enough too) despite what would be a reasonable level of customer demand, for example.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> Is it just a perpetual motion machine of market sharing affording good marketing which then drives continued market share? Worse. It's a market where most of the customers are unsophisticated but price sensitive, so they tend to prefer the provider with the lowest apparent price, and then the big providers compete on the basis of who can present the lowest apparent price through the use of dark patters, misleading claims, bait and switch tactics and hidden fees. Example: GoDaddy provides a "free" site builder but if you use it the resulting site can't easily be extricated from their service and now you're locked in if you don't want to recreate your site. Meanwhile the price you were quoted for various services was an onboarding price and now that you've sunk a lot of time creating and improving the site you can't move, the price is going up. This is, incidentally, a major reason WordPress is so popular despite being fairly miserable. It makes it easy for unsophisticated users to get started and your site isn't tied to a particular host.