13 chunks · 12 episodes
...0 per consumer install). An app has to be big enough to contain within itself a viable business model. But LLMs can produce code cheaply. They are willing to produce itsy bitsy pieces of code that no human would have bothered with if it couldn't...
SplitWise is crammed with ads. That's because it's not a viable business on its own, it's just a useful feature. To be a viable app requires being a viable business So to make it viable they have to cram it with ads.
...ensive to create and needs many users who are the same, it's not a particularly viable business. But in a world of infinite software who cares! It's possible to make one custom fit one to you that adapts as you change.
...pple tree should grow into an apple. Where to locate an apple orchard to have a viable business. Asking a generative image model to create an image with 37 apples. They don't have a global sense of state, only local state being progressively sum...
... the graveyard of failed startup apps. Apps that created user value… but had no viable business. But if the laws of physics have changed to make the overhead of distribution, or the amount of bespoke data necessary to make it viable have changed...
...omfortable giving the app the data it needs to do the use case. That requires a viable business model to exist for the app to be viable. That's a very high bar! Imagine a power-law curve of all conceivable use cases. Only the ones that are extre...
...ersonic flight is technologically feasible for consumer travel. It's just not a viable business.
... of faith; to be useful enough it has to glom together enough use cases (plus a viable business model!) to convince a user to install it. This leads to chunky apps: apps that are larger than they could be, and monolithic, one size fits none. Wha...
...ases surrounded by a defensible business model. Apps are organized primarily by viable business models, not by amount of user value. The same origin model creates a cave where the origin's owner can hoard things. For example, hoarding a bunch of...
...ause the experiences can do anything with data they have access to. 5) The only viable business model for consumers is ads. But if you were to have an alternate set of physics that changed some or all of these, you might have a significantly les...
...will be motivated to use: a low ceiling. If you skip infrastructure, there's no viable business models for entrants into the system. If you skip protocol, then you get something like a traditional aggregator. You can't build this frankenstein wi...
...of options. You need to give up control to the ecosystem, to be able to build a viable business helping customers customize and implement your thing. To have an ecosystem, you need to create more value than you capture--creating the conditions w...
...nly your savvy users could do" Of course, you need to have a solid core (e.g. a viable business model that generates net monetizable value). If you also have some kind of self-hoisting product quality (e.g. a network effect) then you have not on...