"Fuck You" Companies

3 hours ago (aimode.substack.com)

A 'Fuck You' in this instance is ignoring regulations that have been in place for years preventing outside competition. This is the 'disrupt' startup model.

It works well when you have lots of capital to expand and fight lawsuits.

  • Yeah too many of the examples seem to be just that. It’s no true for all “disruptive” startups, it’s not always even bad, but it’s a different play than just solving a problem in a new way.

    - Uber is an end-run around existing taxi monopolies (imo a good thing), plus I believe taking advantage of people’s inability to think longer term about depreciation on their vehicle when calculating earnings.

    - crypto is an end-run around securities regulations. It’s not a payment system it’s an investment scam that would be illegal if used with other financial instruments

    - a vast swath of big tech is profitable on the back of not providing customer service or recourse of any kind and just automating business without regard for edge cases (not necessarily regulation but formerly a requirement for a business to participate in society)

  • Disagree, the author is using Fuck You as a proxy for customer pain. Fuck You taxi industry works because people hate taxis. Fuck You hotels worked because people hate hotels. Fuck You Google works (in terms of llms) works because Google results became shit.

    Identifying industries where people begrudgingly accept the status quo because they need the service but hate everything about how it's provided is your opportunity.

    • > people hate hotels.

      Was this the case though?

      Airbnb and hotels.com and the likes have been pushing the hotels towards a race to the bottom but actual hotels are not bad in my experience. Small quasi-hotels with ordinary flats that run like a estate get rich quick scheme are though.

    • > people hate hotels

      Other than mandatory fees not displayed in the advertised daily rate, I have never heard of people hating hotels.

      Airbnb listings also have mandatory fees not displayed in their advertised daily rate.

      My understanding is that Airbnb took off because it was cheaper than hotels (however in general, that may not be the case anymore).

      I think *people hate costs more than they hate services* (which is how airlines like Spirit and Ryanair have managed to do business).