Long term success is achieved by not behaving as a parasite.
Does someone here have a grudge against him?
While you guys thinking Facebook, Twitter, Medium is bad enough, we in China is on another level.
Most top websites in China will "ask" (If pop a download window counts) user to download their apps if the user is on a phone, some websites are intentionally left dysfunctional to force user to use their app. And guess what's the first thing those apps ask you to do? "Please login(, and... maybe send ALL your information to us plus a secretly taken screenshot of your portrait)".
Since almost all of them are doing this, I assume it is a crucial strategy for them to keep their user active. Facebook Twitter etc maybe up to the same thing just not bold enough.
For Internet company, user is what generates value. So it make since for those companies to grab their user as tight as possible especially when the competitors are doing the same.
On the same note, if a user just don't want to login or use the app, then the user is no value or even a negative value for the company. For that, a company can intentionally annoy (the actual word used is Convince) those users until they give in.
With all that been said, what I wanted to point out is, sometime, parasite can be successful. This is why we have many types of parasites in the real world. Automatically assuming "'parasites' will just die" is not going to help if the end goal is to kill all the parasites.
Exactly. That was how the internet worked before the web (and still does today): pop/smtp, ftp, nntp, gopher, etc. had each one its own client because they were different protocols doing different things. But today, when phones have a working web browser that does what 99% of apps can do and more, it's against any logic forcing people to install an app for every brand, sometimes for every product. That would be ok for mail, news, file transfer, IoT, music, video, etc. because they're way different things, but installing 5 apps to read 5 newspapers or buying 5 products from 5 different vendors is like throwing into the toilet all innovation brought since the web was invented. I can guess only three reasons for this: sticking a brand name into the user screen, bypassing browsers adblockers, and getting a foot into the door for nefarious purposes since most apps require insanely dangerous privileges which one day could be exploited.
Competing is hard. Why compete when you can buy elected officials and change laws in your favor?
The sad truth is that lots of value-destroying and/or cheating companies succeed for decades.
Examples:
- every management consultancy - IBM - record labels + RIAA - Outbrain and all the other "related links" companies - many pharma examples, like the Sackler family - all of the heavily subsidized US industries like corn and oil - Nestle, Coca-Cola, and other companies monopolizing and selling public water - many grad school programs - Mercola - countless Chinese knockoff brands on Amazon - the House of Saud - Susan G. Komen Foundation - Intuit/TurboTax - Amway - almost all fund managers - HerbaLife - Donald Trump - most ISPs, cable companies, and mobile carriers - many (if not all) major defense contractors
So I guess it depends on how bright the host is, and that's questionable.