[tyleo]

I feel like we’re in an era of dark monetization patterns. This “whale” monetization reminds me of online advertising where if you aren’t paying you’re the product.

It isn’t quite the same but it’s something like, “if you aren’t paying, you’re incentivizing whales.”

Underneath all the darkness a business has to make money. People are voting with time and money that the whale strategy is optimal just like they vote with time and money that advertising is optimal.

I don’t know what to do about this all. It seems like it’s just a shitty fact of human nature.

[nlitened]

Everybody in mobile gaming and gambling industries acknowledges that “whales” are mentally sick people with addiction issues, but if you don’t capture and monetize whales, your competitor will. Your game dev studio will dwindle over years until investors drain it dry, while your competitor builds private kindergartens and schools for their employees’ children in their third worldwide campus location.