The co-optation trap you name, where an ecosystem neutralizes a challenger not by beating it but by absorbing it until participation becomes the only rational move, is one of the most under-examined dynamics in platform competition. What makes it so hard to resist is that each individual decision to integrate looks locally optimal even as it quietly forecloses the exit. I keep running into a cousin of this in AI adoption, where 'we are using it' replaces 'it is working' as the success metric and the felt progress diverges from the measured kind: https://rkto.substack.com/p/you-think-ai-is-making-you-faster
This one has a very different flavor from many of your stories. Far from attempting to "save the market," copyfarleft is based upon deep critique of capitalism.
I think you're onto something there. Hannah Arendt was once asked a question about Marx, to which she replied, "I have never shared Marx's enthusiasm for Capitalism."
Informative story about agriculture. Companies of all kinds attempt to lock in customers through contracts, loyalty programs, etc. On the one hand, it’s good for a company to be able to stabilize its environment and plan based on that. It’s bad when these tools are used to quash competition or prevent users from banding together to operate in their own interests.
I heartily applaud your developmental evolution of this powerful thought-partner system. Love the theme, graphic, and research foundations. Would it be interesting to add something about the level of the decision maker to conceive of and to implement the idea? Better yet, perhaps, to discuss the Jaques level of all the major players in the story....at least for my senior management consultant and SME CEO associaties. Something like the analysis described here. https://share.gemini.google/1wzpYndkCOOY
The level of the dialogue is tuned to thr level of the situation though one can readily specify any persona desired for the decision maker and it will realign the dialogue.
Understood! And it may also help identify not only stakeholders in a dilemma but also the relative levels of cognitive ability and potential power they bring to the situation. I think it helps to identify farmers at II & III, farm co-ops at IV, the protagonist at V, and the exploitative competitors at VI & VII. And how playing and defending at the level of the exploiters, one needs a plan at VI.
The context was: As long as we try to sell RO, encouraging people to eat the whole elephant, RO will remain a niche method, but if we use RO concepts to help CEOs solve their urgent problems without the arcane vocabulary and insisting on the entire system at once, they will awaken to its value more naturally and with little or no resistance.
Standing back from this specific agrochemical domain example, what’s the generic model that translates it into other domains? I am thinking initially of the energy sector that is undergoing rapid evolution under a combination of environmental and resource demand growth plus smart adaptive energy technologies which serve to make the whole sector more intelligent which opens the potential for far more distributed economic, social and environmental benefits on one hand yet at the same time could be perverted into becoming yet another shareholder enrichment machine - even in a highly regulated sector.
The co-optation trap you name, where an ecosystem neutralizes a challenger not by beating it but by absorbing it until participation becomes the only rational move, is one of the most under-examined dynamics in platform competition. What makes it so hard to resist is that each individual decision to integrate looks locally optimal even as it quietly forecloses the exit. I keep running into a cousin of this in AI adoption, where 'we are using it' replaces 'it is working' as the success metric and the felt progress diverges from the measured kind: https://rkto.substack.com/p/you-think-ai-is-making-you-faster
Rajveer, enjoyed your article. Many thanks for the link.
I'm so glad, thank you for your kind words!
This one has a very different flavor from many of your stories. Far from attempting to "save the market," copyfarleft is based upon deep critique of capitalism.
To what extent might it be that capitalism is the problem?
I think you're onto something there. Hannah Arendt was once asked a question about Marx, to which she replied, "I have never shared Marx's enthusiasm for Capitalism."
Nice, I hadn't heard that.
Informative story about agriculture. Companies of all kinds attempt to lock in customers through contracts, loyalty programs, etc. On the one hand, it’s good for a company to be able to stabilize its environment and plan based on that. It’s bad when these tools are used to quash competition or prevent users from banding together to operate in their own interests.
To what extent might we be better off if we pursued better rather than just more?
Better money or more money? I get your point though. 😏
Better quality of life for all.
I heartily applaud your developmental evolution of this powerful thought-partner system. Love the theme, graphic, and research foundations. Would it be interesting to add something about the level of the decision maker to conceive of and to implement the idea? Better yet, perhaps, to discuss the Jaques level of all the major players in the story....at least for my senior management consultant and SME CEO associaties. Something like the analysis described here. https://share.gemini.google/1wzpYndkCOOY
The level of the dialogue is tuned to thr level of the situation though one can readily specify any persona desired for the decision maker and it will realign the dialogue.
Understood! And it may also help identify not only stakeholders in a dilemma but also the relative levels of cognitive ability and potential power they bring to the situation. I think it helps to identify farmers at II & III, farm co-ops at IV, the protagonist at V, and the exploitative competitors at VI & VII. And how playing and defending at the level of the exploiters, one needs a plan at VI.
Didn't you comment the other day about RO being a niche management theory?
The context was: As long as we try to sell RO, encouraging people to eat the whole elephant, RO will remain a niche method, but if we use RO concepts to help CEOs solve their urgent problems without the arcane vocabulary and insisting on the entire system at once, they will awaken to its value more naturally and with little or no resistance.
A good comment to live by.
Standing back from this specific agrochemical domain example, what’s the generic model that translates it into other domains? I am thinking initially of the energy sector that is undergoing rapid evolution under a combination of environmental and resource demand growth plus smart adaptive energy technologies which serve to make the whole sector more intelligent which opens the potential for far more distributed economic, social and environmental benefits on one hand yet at the same time could be perverted into becoming yet another shareholder enrichment machine - even in a highly regulated sector.
To what extent might a viable future look like a mycelial network?