Step 1: groundbreaking service comes in that fills a market hole
Step 2: people flock to service
Step 3: service gets VC funding to continue operations, subsidising the users
Step 4: service gets “copied”, competitors crop up, use VC funding to eke out their own marketshare while making things worse for everyone but themselves
Step 5: expansion plateaus as interest in service generalises (basically, everyone who could be interested, is already using it)
Step 6: VC funding depletes, company has to start making a profit - leading to price hikes, which is followed by other players in the market as that’s how capitalism works
Step 7: price hikes not being enough, service tries to capitalise on their userbase (think restricting features to a higher paid tier, introducing new tiers that strip away features, introducing ads, etc.)
Step 8: market is saturated with plateaud services, user movement is minimal, and everybody hates it because it’s expensive, and reintroduced the same problem the initial innovative service meant to fix.
Sure, but Netflix was not venture capital as far as I know. It started with mailing subscriptions then grew into greatness and now, it’s shittier than ever.
No, that’s the evolution of venture capitalism.
Step 1: groundbreaking service comes in that fills a market hole
Step 2: people flock to service
Step 3: service gets VC funding to continue operations, subsidising the users
Step 4: service gets “copied”, competitors crop up, use VC funding to eke out their own marketshare while making things worse for everyone but themselves
Step 5: expansion plateaus as interest in service generalises (basically, everyone who could be interested, is already using it)
Step 6: VC funding depletes, company has to start making a profit - leading to price hikes, which is followed by other players in the market as that’s how capitalism works
Step 7: price hikes not being enough, service tries to capitalise on their userbase (think restricting features to a higher paid tier, introducing new tiers that strip away features, introducing ads, etc.)
Step 8: market is saturated with plateaud services, user movement is minimal, and everybody hates it because it’s expensive, and reintroduced the same problem the initial innovative service meant to fix.
Which is why i call it vulture capitalism: born to feed the vultures.
Sure, but Netflix was not venture capital as far as I know. It started with mailing subscriptions then grew into greatness and now, it’s shittier than ever.