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There are only Three Base Business Models
[Updated 2014-01-05: for completeness reasons, here are two more categories: 4) robbing people, and 5) taking advantage of people. In my book, they don’t qualify as “business” models because they are borderline or actually criminal, but they do exist.] If you put all business models into the following three buckets, suddenly all sorts of things…
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The “we-pretend-its-free-and-sell-you-out-behind-your-back-Web2.0-business model”
Silicon Valley goes through those phases. They are long enough that somehow, everybody seems to have forgotten that they are just the flavor du jour and will pass just like platform shoes and Milli Vanilli. For the past ten years, all that anybody can conceive of doing in startup land is this: we build a…
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The Hamster Business Model
Dave Winer has a wonderful description of the model of many “leading” internet companies: the “hamster” business model. He writes: This is, btw, the user-as-hamster business model. The one where you sit in a cage and make the wheels spin around. Either you’re watching commercials while doing your workout, or you’re generating information about yourself…