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Add link to view_in_app. 

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voussoir 2023-06-04 14:28:28 -07:00
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voussoir.net/writing/advertixing/advertixing.md
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@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ You might be thinking that the quality of the product still comes into play beca
There are some cases where this doesn't work at all because of network effects or surrounding ecosystems. Users don't want to join the most technically superior social network, because their friends are on the old one. Users don't want to switch to the most technically superior spreadsheet tool, because there are lots of video tutorials about the old one.
There are other cases where it does work -- but only briefly -- because the better product is coming from a young and idealistic company that hasn't fully realized the consequences of their recent pivot into the media production industry. Young companies, especially those with angel investors, can undercut the incumbents because they're willing to operate at a loss in an attempt to fast-track their market share. But when it comes time for them to start returning on their investments, they realize they need to start recouping their costs via sponsorships and they become just like the incumbents they destroyed. See how imgur.com took over the image hosting space with their easy UI and straightforward hotlinking. Now, they are "Your upload will resume after this ad, or press ESC", impossible to visit hotlinks without getting redirected to the webpage, pushing you to download the app. Like ImageShack before it, Imgur has gone downhill and is ready to be replaced by a new starry-eyed image host destined to repeat the process. Some day, Imgur will die, and its in wake will be millions of image links that no longer work. Free-with-ads products live on a treadmill and the entire internet suffers for it. If there's anything on the internet that you might want to access again in ten years, I'd suggest you buy a nice big hard drive and start downloading it now while you can.
There are other cases where it does work -- but only briefly -- because the better product is coming from a young and idealistic company that hasn't fully realized the consequences of their recent pivot into the media production industry. Young companies, especially those with angel investors, can undercut the incumbents because they're willing to operate at a loss in an attempt to fast-track their market share. But when it comes time for them to start returning on their investments, they realize they need to start recouping their costs via sponsorships and they become just like the incumbents they destroyed. See how imgur.com took over the image hosting space with their easy UI and straightforward hotlinking. Now, they are "Your upload will resume after this ad, or press ESC", impossible to visit hotlinks without getting redirected to the webpage, pushing you to [download the app](/writing/view_in_app). Like ImageShack before it, Imgur has gone downhill and is ready to be replaced by a new starry-eyed image host destined to repeat the process. Some day, Imgur will die, and its in wake will be millions of image links that no longer work. Free-with-ads products live on a treadmill and the entire internet suffers for it. If there's anything on the internet that you might want to access again in ten years, I'd suggest you buy a nice big hard drive and start downloading it now while you can.
[Goodhart's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law) says "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". We've all seen this: people who split one task into many small ones so they can say they did many tasks; students who increase the font size on their essay so they can hit the minimum page requirement more easily; programmers who [close bug reports](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28998374) without fixing them to keep the issue count low; Youtubers who fluff up empty ideas into 10+ minute videos for algorithm [favorance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi6FcI2wFrw "RubberNinja - Does Independent Animation Have a Future on YouTube?"); entrepreneurs who cash in on [dead-cobra bounties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect) by breeding more cobras to kill, or, rather, [3D-printing gun parts to sell at buybacks](guardian_3d_gun_buyback.html). People in general are very adept at exploiting these kinds of opportunities and, as [game theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) will tell you, it'd be silly not to.