Finding Startup Ideas and Building in Heavily-Regulated Spaces

There are two broad classes: changing regulations and clarifying/improving existing ones.

The former are the easier ones, a shift in regulation can create new markets (and destroy others). Let's say there's a new mandated requirement for banks, if you can provide them with a solution then you have a very captive market. Conversely, sometimes new possibilities arise, e.g. instant transfers. The changing regulatory framework create vacuums to fill, and contrarily to new technologies, you don't have to be on top of the game to fight in those spaces, just on point and on time.

As for the latter, sometimes things are done one way because navigating the regulation is so complex that no one really wants to do it. There's already a solution, it works decently, why bother. However, as time goes by, cruft accumulates, or maybe technology makes it now easier to solve the problem or circumvent regulation. If you're willing to do the work, then you can disrupt the existing market. I would class Uber and Airbnb in this category. It doesn't have to be illegal though, it's just that regulation is often unclear, especially if you go into the details, or in some new situations that did not exist when it was written.

I was going through the Ant Design guidelines out of curiosity and comparing it to Material Design. Not a designer, but I was struck by how there was a principle intended to directly address this: "Stay on the page."

I get that using popups rather than inline CTAs might juice first order conversions, but I wonder if it inhibits second order ones. I guess I wonder if these kinds of pushy techniques ever work or are they more for the peace of mind of the site owner than the visitor, but I also wonder if the average visitor is really that bothered by it.