The Rot Economy: Why Startups Should Feast on Big Tech's Decay
Big Tech's decline creates startup opportunities, says PR expert Ed Zitron.
Matilda
The Rot Economy: Why Startups Should Feast on Big Tech's Decay
If you spend any amount of time online, you probably noticed that your user experience keeps getting worse. Image Credits:Getty Images Websites are waterlogged with autoplay ads, pop-ups, and tracking scripts. Customer service chatbots are useless, despite the promises of generative AI. Social media algorithms boost rage-bait to keep you scrolling and engaged. Dating apps hide all the good ones behind a paywall. Your printer won’t work without a monthly subscription. Oh, and good luck canceling that subscription in three clicks or less. This is the backwash of the internet’s shift from a user-first experience to one designed to maximize engagement, ad revenue, and subscriptions. Ed Zitron, CEO of EZPR and host of the Better Offline podcast, calls it the “rot economy,” the result of “a tech industry that has become so obsessed with growth that you, the paying customer, are a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value.” In a recent episode of the Equit…
