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Comment by 0xParlay | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything.

As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool.

Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And if you do manage to grow, acquisitions that amount to life changing generational wealth is hard to ignore - and it's not like the future of your product is guaranteed.

Wall street needs returns. Tech is just the first to adapt to the loot-box economy but it'll spread. Anything that can be turned into a subscription model will be. Air-bags to air conditioning. We will own nothing and like it.

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A lot of people reject political ideas (i.e., regulations) because they have an idealized love for our free markets. Meanwhile small profitable companies are going out of business to larger unprofitable companies.

It begs the question, how did the larger unprofitable company become large in the first place? It wasn't by delivering goods and services at a fair price, it was by currying favor with those already in power. The romantic view that to succeed in a free market you sell goods and services at a fair price doesn't hold.

“A lot of people reject political ideas (i.e., regulations) because they have an idealized love for our free markets.”

No, it’s that regulation is often used as a political tool to wield power over the players in the market.

Free markets are far from ideal. But they do make it a bit more difficult to game the system because there are fewer ways for a third party to interject itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen or even that it’s rare. Just more rare than if you turn politicians loose on the system.

I’m always amazed that people implicitly trust politicians, as though they’re unbiased referees trying to keep the game fair. Nope. The reasonable regulation you pass today will turn into some bizarre fiefdom in 10 years.

I've come to believe this is just the latest version of a very old (and illegal) tactic: predatory pricing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

I think the way to do it is by growing inside a niche that is sufficiently narrow that it isn't interesting for a big competitor.

I have a small agency and a product in a niche market and even there big consulting and IT services companies are starting spin offs to address these niches, and even bidding at a loss (especially when you take into account pre sales investments) to displace remaining niche actors like us.

Loot-box is gambling not subscriptions.

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