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by josh2600
3762 days ago
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When you think about the governance of cults, do you think the latitude society could've worked if the authors had been upfront about their intentions from day 1? That is to say, if the invitation had said "we are building a secret society for the elite", would that have sufficiently filtered the population such that monetization would've been possible? I'm thinking of this from the perspective of startups which have a false freemium narrative vs companies which monetize from day 1. User acquisition would've been harder, but each user would've crossed a wider moat to entry. |
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I think that if you're trying to build a product that you want to charge for, then it's worth signaling that aggressively from the beginning (building what they call the "ladder" in that article). That said, Latitude did send some signals (e.g. the Marketplace section on the website, etc). But of course, it was challenging to balance that with the whole invitation-only "you are special" mythos.
I think that it would also have been possible to announce the monetization plan differently, with more tiers of engagement, and more explicit levels of "earning" a free membership. There was only one paid membership option, which was hundreds of dollars.
The company could also have pursued a totally different plan -- like finding a fiscal sponsor and applying for grants. Nonprofits have a higher survival rate than startups, and their art was so unique and beautiful, I think it could have had potential for major grant support. This would have required a major shift in approach though (and probably staffing, too).