I think that all image hosts suffer from the same sad pattern of eventual failure. That pattern is:
I wouldn't place the blame squarely on the company however. It's also true that consumers have predictable behavior patterns -- they want free stuff, and they will stick around to get that, and then move to the next thing.
On the other hand, we want free stuff because we don't want to sign up for subscriptions, and companies are always making that annoying -- betting on us forgetting to cancel, making it hard to cancel, tacking on hidden fees (banks do a lot of this), etc.
I wish that money could just be exchanged for goods and services, as Homer Simpson once noted ...
Great analogy! I hadn't seen that. I can definitely see that in Groupon (which seems much less popular now?)
Although I would also consider the other side of the "sharing economy" -- IMO sharing like Zipcar makes a lot of economic sense, and I don't have a lot of sympathy for incumbents there (although I guess Zipcar got bought).
Likewise with the taxi and hotel industries -- the incumbents deserve some competition / disruption.
Very similar to this phenomenon, in relation to imgur and so forth:
https://drewdevault.com/2014/10/10/The-profitability-of-onli...
I think that all image hosts suffer from the same sad pattern of eventual failure. That pattern is:
I wouldn't place the blame squarely on the company however. It's also true that consumers have predictable behavior patterns -- they want free stuff, and they will stick around to get that, and then move to the next thing.
On the other hand, we want free stuff because we don't want to sign up for subscriptions, and companies are always making that annoying -- betting on us forgetting to cancel, making it hard to cancel, tacking on hidden fees (banks do a lot of this), etc.
I wish that money could just be exchanged for goods and services, as Homer Simpson once noted ...