Quote:
Originally Posted by Hronmeer
Example, online poker is another market where you have the consumer and provider/producer. Statistics and history has proven that ultimately the consumer dictates the availability, cost and quality of the product/service. The interesting data is the different type of consumers that certain products are available for.
Key points:
Uncle Sam has been selling a fully baked apple pie for six months at $2.25.
Uncle Sam has had enough consumers to continue producing and providing the same product at the same price and earning $1.25 revenue (1$ profit after taxes)
Uncle Sam product is 3 out of 5 stars and factors for ratings are amount of apple with the size and cost of the product.
Uncle Sam has built a reputation through the last six months of providing the product.
Uncle Sam hasn't motivated Uncle Bob across the street to start producing the same product at $1.99 with 25% more apple, but things changed once Uncle Bob became unemployed.
Uncle Sam has lost 75% of his consumers after six months to Uncle Bob and that's after adjusting his product to match Uncle Bob same price and quality.
Uncle Sam ultimately was forced to make a choice between providing the same product with the same quality at $1.50 or seek to compete with another product for a different market.
Through the last two years neither uncle Bob or Sam needed to sell me the pie for $1.75. Both Uncle Sam and Bob lost $200 from me during these two years, but because they had enough consumers that bought their product the final result... I end up buying a pumpkin pie even though I preferred the apple, but in the end still felt satisfying because my stomach was full while having extra $0.25 to spend, while both Uncle Bob and Sam are still out there two years later producing the product, but instead they could've retired by now because they sold 5,000 pies for $2 or 2.25 per instead of 7500 at $1.75.
TLDR:
How this translates with online poker? Ask yourself how many are "engaged" playing online poker in whatever town/market size it's available. Ultimately, it will be always on Uncle Sam and Bob to produce a product that there's enough demand to not go out of business and one of the best ways to determine which product to provide where and at what cost is to start with yourself and if you'll be "engaged" yourself consuming it, because data doesn't initially exists until time passes by. Only those who're good at analyzing data like two decades of online poker would benefit greatly for being among the first to provide a product where both the consumer and producer are actively engaging/trading.
If the business has a good reputation sooner or later people will talk about it, starting among their families, relatives and friends, which is the best and cheapest advertising, while in today's world oddly many believe in paid advertising/sponsorships that only notifies the consumer that the product is available in the store. As stated above where Daniel, Phil and Steve are and what they're doing with their time like playing online poker at home or selling hot dogs at the stadium, it all comes down to what has become more rewarding/profitable for them.
I'm not sure what point you're really making here.
Personal referrals are always the most effective form of marketing and you don't need decades of information to know that. Online poker has gone through multiple phases of selling their product:
1) You'll be rich! (initial poker boom era)
2) You'll be on TV! (pre-UIGEA and some post UIGEA, plus WSOP and WPT)
3) You can be a pro! (2010s with training sites)
4) Hey it's pretty fun! (2020s no money everybody's solid)
and all of those were reasonable selling points at the time they were being made.
What we've really learned from two decades of online poker is that it's an economy. It needs money flowing in to support the money flowing out. When the money's pouring in, the key is to keep it circulating. When the money stops flowing in, there needs to be more and more controls on the money flowing out.
