Mark Hurst writes about a company whose website wasn't giving people what they came for. "...The new homepage showed up without any search form, or links to cars, except in some secondary areas in the bottom-right of the page. Everything else on the homepage was given over to partner links and other 'monetization' - newsletters, alerts, high-tech doodads, and the like - anything to capture and lock up customers and their attention. Once again, the primary reason customers were coming to the site - to find basic price and review data on cars - was pushed away." Then, it became an internal political game of trade-offs between revenue and giving people want they came for.
When I was in the ad biz, I dreamed of being Jeff Bezos because he didn't have to serve multiple masters. Amazon just had to serve customers. If they serve customers well, then they and the customers win. No trade-offs between what's good for the people and what's good for the people paying the bills because it's the people who are paying the bills. Amazon, eBay, Apple, WalMart, Microsoft, the corner deli, and millions of other companies, have that kind of simple dynamic: Their mission & money (sustainability) & the people they serve are all pretty much aligned. It's your basic business.
Mark's story is of the classic opposite: If they give people what they want, the company might not succeed. Money (sustainability) isn't directly aligned with the mission. Of course, plenty of businesses are wildly successful that way, but simpletons like me would have a hard time -- and have less fun -- doing it well. The people don't get served as well when it's not the primary interest of the company to serve them. The people come Second.
Unfortunately, with The New Online Ad Bubble, a lot more people will come Second. It'll be more situations like the one Mark describes. It's hard to serve the people best when the money's coming from somewhere else.
When The First Online Ad Bubble burst, everyone was in awe of AOL's subscription business. Real people paying for something! I remember reading Jason Calacanis write in 2001 about how the future is consumer subscriptions and people paying for stuff. Now, Calacanis of AOL writes about AOL ditching the subscription biz. You could argue that serving the audience yields more ad dollars, so there's enough incentive to serve the people. Maybe, but it probably means trade-offs and compromises that make products just that bit worse for the people.
At my job, I love knowing that everything we do is all about serving the people. More Members, More Money, and More Meetups are all connected. The more that Meetups succeed, the more we succeed.
