
I am your co-creator, not your competitor - littke
https://lookback.io/blog/i-am-your-co-creator-not-your-competitor
======
waylandsmithers
Thank you. THANK YOU! Something that has always pissed me off is when business
leaders say things along the lines of "We're not about making money. That may
be a side effect of what we do. But our real mission is to help people do
XYZ." Then they see other companies trying to do XYZ and try to put them out
of business.

We're always taught that competition brings out the best, and sometimes that's
true. Sometimes you get parties in the same space improving in ways to one-up
each other and put out a superior product. But sometimes you get Susan G.
Komen trying to trademark the pink ribbon.

~~~
acangiano
It's worth noting that Susan G. Komen was an innocent woman who died of breast
cancer back in 1980. The questionable practices you mention are carried out by
the homonymous association created in her memory by her sister (who is the CEO
at the tune of $684K/year).

~~~
elwell
wha? that's insane.

------
javajosh
And yet, if you're an apple farmer, you don't _want_ to see another apple
stall at the farmers market - whether or not you see them as competitors or
"co-creators" of apples. You really want to be the only guy with apples, for a
bunch of fairly practical reasons. You get a strong pricing position, but also
your customers (mental) lives are arguably better because they no longer have
the burden of choice - at least, if they are certain they want an apple, and
not an orange.

It may be morally correct for the apple seller to embrace the new apple
seller, and call him a "co-creator". But how will these good feelings will
last when his competitor discovers a way to get much higher yields of apples,
and drives the price down? Or less ethically (but certainly permitted) would
be for a well-healed seller to price dump a little, and try to get the
competition out of the market.

The only thing that allows two competitors to happily co-exist is scarcity. If
there is huge demand that cannot be satisfied, by both producers together,
then these maneuvers just aren't possible, because people will continue to buy
from both sellers at any price. This is a luxurious place to be in business.
Perhaps that is where we are in the software field, in 2014: a huge demand for
new software, with so few people able to actually make the stuff, makes us one
big happy family. But when the demand decreases, or the supply of software-
makers increases, it will be difficult to maintain this attitude of
cooperation.

------
hammock
Also known as an abundance mentality.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People#Abundance_mentality)

~~~
k3oni
Thanks for the link.

An important quote from that "the abundance mentality arises from having a
high self-worth and security and leads to the sharing of profits, recognition
and responsibility".

That point is a bit hard to apply in real world due to the general nature of
our inner self or the circles we are exposed to.

------
quadrangle
Stupid site is totally broken with NoScript even though all that matters in it
is plain text.

Anyway, there's something to do this sentiment, but people often are actually
more productive when collaborating than when reinventing the wheel over and
over. And splitting up attention between a bunch of projects isn't healthy in
and of itself. It's just that it's also true that competition has many
benefits. But it's complicated.

~~~
littke
The site is powered entirely by MeteorJS. There's a no-script version
generated by Phantom but I guess it's not made for viewing. Sorry about that.

~~~
null_ptr
There was a brief period a few years ago when the leading web design trend was
to make pages simple, fast, and _accessible_. Out the window those all went.

~~~
jotm
Reminds me of how Flash sites looked when Flash Player was not installed (or
with a flash blocker installed). We made a 360 on needless Web design
apparently :-)

------
JoeAltmaier
Its ok to think this way - if you're not about the money. The guy who IS about
the money will eat your lunch. Spread rumors about your quality. Suggest
you're not a professional product. Snag your domain name right before you
rename yourself. Cut you in a hundred ways.

Nice to think everybody will play nice, and in some imaginary world that might
happen. But here, its important to keep looking out for number one.

~~~
MarkPNeyer
people doing this ruin the market for everyone else they are in. i believe
this ultimately hurts them, too.

once people start figuring out that public image matters more than anything
else, and that the public likes helpful people more than they like assholes, i
think this will change.

~~~
rhizome
_once people start figuring out that public image matters more than anything
else, and that the public likes helpful people more than they like assholes, i
think this will change._

From Dick Cheney, to Maury Povich, to apparently every university business
program, to popular sports, the entire Western cultural environment has been
oriented around treating personal endeavors as zero-sum games. There is a
thing called winning, only one person/group can win, and it better not be the
other guy who gets it.

For _generations_ , at least since the Gilded Age, cooperation and
commmunitarianism has been subsumed under individual success. Where do you see
people figuring out that things should (or even _could_ ) change from this
entrenched state of affairs? Are you saying we need a cultural revolution?
Because that wasn't very fun for the little guy the last few times it
occurred.

UPDATE: Case in point:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7354012)

------
angrybits
If we are going after the same wallet on the same product, then we are
competitors. Not acknowledging me as such doesn't make it any less true.

------
loceng
The true value of this mentality isn't possible while in the current structure
of our capitalistic systems.

~~~
jerf
It's not just "capitalism"; it's hard to imagine _any_ realistic system in
which this works and doesn't leave you vulnerable to people who exploit your
strategy. Even in straight-up Communism, the competitive people who were smart
enough not to be fooled about party line on "equality" could get radically
more than their peers. Everybody mouthed words about how that didn't happen,
but it did, and everybody knows it.

Historically speaking, there is some degree of success to be had in convincing
_others_ to adopt this position, though, so that others can exploit them.
Capitalism is at least being _honest_ , unlike the systems that lie to you
about how you can adopt this strategy. I often think that a great deal of what
people don't like about capitalism is precisely that it is generally being
honest and not telling you glittering, appealing lies.

~~~
loceng
I believe what you're talking about overall is game theory. Capitalism being
"honest" isn't really a reasonable justification when a system inherently
allows others to be dishonest without repercussions, accountability,
responsibility, etc.. There are some very simple mechanisms that can be put in
place which makes it more honest, or rather limits the damage of those being
"dishonest" or who are best at figuring out how to excessively take advantage.
I do believe capitalism likely needs to stay in place, it's a matter of how we
govern the systems that needs to shift.

~~~
jerf
No, I'm not saying capitalism creates honest people... I'm saying the
philosophy _itself_ is being honest. Communism says once it gets into place,
we're all just pulling for the common good and everybody gets equal ownership
of everything. This is a lie. The system still "inherently allows others to be
dishonest without repercussions, accountability, responsibility, etc.", and
history can make a good case that it does so _all the more so_ than a
capitalistic system does. Capitalism tells you the truth; it's a rough world
out there and you need to be able to find some way to compete.

Much of the criticism (but not all!) of capitalism boils down to people
shooting the messenger. It _is_ a rough world out there and you _do_ need to
find some way to compete, but some people would rather hear from people
singing about how if you just give them all the power, their philosophy will
erase that from the world and you can just go to sleep peacefully and stop
worrying. Unfortunately, this is also a lie, or at least that's what the
history shows.

Nor does this mean that we are somehow obligated to "maximize" brutality or
something stupid. It means that by facing it squarely, we are better able to
deal with it, and that's why the capitalistic countries of the world are far
better places to be than the places that reject it. It may not be perfect, but
by aligning oneself with the true nature of the world you end up producing
enough excess wealth to be able to seriously engage in social programs. It's
OK to wish it weren't this way... it's not so OK to think that if we just
close our eyes and wish hard enough we can make the problem unexist. That
leads to actions that leave you vulnerable and exposed. Facing the truth is
part of the path to changing it; denial often just makes it far worse.

~~~
rhizome
Where both Communism and Capitalism betray their fundamental nature as
ideological is where they attempt to predict the future, or divine the
behavior and/or motivations of their participants.

EDIT: _It is a rough world out there and you do need to find some way to
compete_

That survival depends on competition is a religious tenet, an ideological
rationalization.

~~~
jerf
Survival depends on you being able to compete in some manner because resources
are finite, and for every life form that lives there are thousands, millions,
maybe more that don't live because that life form had the resources. The idea
that humans are somehow excluded from that is itself a religious tenant or
rationalization, or perhaps more accurately, an illusion brought on by this
moment of overwhelming wealth and power humans have amassed for themselves.
For this brief moment in geological time, it is possible to successfully
"compete" for resources by, for example, drawing this bizarre thing called a
"disability claim", which hasn't exactly been around for very long, and has no
guarantee that it will be around for any particular period of time into the
future. But you can only do this because of the wealth generated by the
incredibly successful competition that humanity has developed... and it scares
me both that the boundary between this life and the more normal order of
affairs is so thin, and that there are people, like you, who treat it as some
sort of natural law, to the point of mocking people still in contact with
reality. History shows when there's enough people like you, the prosperity
goes away. Alas, history doesn't show us a way of preventing that from
happening... here's hoping the march of technology gives us an exit this time.

It is a wonderful thing that humans cooperate enough that we can build enough
wealth that some of us, even many of us, can forget this... but the fact that
the human strategy is ultimately one of great cooperation doesn't change the
fact that the human cooperation lives on a substrate of vicious, no-holds-
barred competition, induced by the physics of how this universe works.

Realizing the world is built on competition is not what breeds viciousness...
it is what lets us successfully build the secondary layer on top that shields
us from it. Those philosophies that try to take a shortcut and declare that
the world is not a competitive place have the paradoxical effect of exposing
us all the more directly to the raw competition again, because it causes
people to build structures that, in their denial of the nature of reality,
therefore fail to insulate us against it.

The first step to solving a problem is ever and always _clearly identify the
problem_ , not _refuse to see the problem_.

~~~
rhizome
It's all so clear isn't it? However, the "this is it; this is the answer"
mentality that you express here is yet another instance of ideology and zero-
sum thinking.

Long story short, if you're talking about a secondary layer over anarchic
brutality, I'm talking about tertiary-and-beyond ones. Obviously this is no
natural law, much less than your secondary layer. And I never said that
competition breeds viciousness, but if you want to argue that point, I'll take
the position that your secondary layer has not eliminated it.

The first step to figuring out if you've identified a problem properly is _to
figure out whether you are soaking in it_.

------
ecocentrik
The term "co-creation" was being used in marketing space a few years ago as a
synonym for collaborative user generated content. It disappeared for a while
and here it is again being used in a "hey, look at me" self marketing blog
post as a synonym for competitive collaboration. I'd say the meaning hasn't
diverged at all.

~~~
littke
Yes, I noticed this too (it's mentioned in the footnotes). That's not the
concept refer to in the post though, and I was a little bit annoyed when I
first found out about it after having drafted the majority of this article :)

------
dingdingdang
Your site scrolls 100% on the horizontal axis - it needs a bit of co-creative
fixing.

~~~
littke
haha... yes. why don't you co-creatively suggest a fix? :D

~~~
dchuk
Your <article> for some reason is using position: absolute.

In this style: ".main-content#blog article:after, .main-content #blog
article:after", just delete the position: absolute line (not sure where that
is in your css file as yours is concatenated/minified in your theme).

~~~
littke
Thank you.

------
joeframbach
When my product manager needs to make a product decision, rather than thinking
about it and coming up with a single creative idea, he rather goes directly to
competitors' sites. Every time, without fail. I look at our product roadmap
and it looks like a diff of our site vs competitor site. It drives me crazy.
After reading this blog entry though, I understand. It truly is the nature of
business.

~~~
littke
Well, that's interesting. I guess it's about "living at the forefront of human
invention", right? But at the same time, only doing that obviously leads no
where. I (the OP of the co-creation post) wrote a blog post called 'A life
designed by intuition', describing the opposite of what your PM is doing:
[http://littke.com/2013/11/11/a-life-designed-by-
intuition.ht...](http://littke.com/2013/11/11/a-life-designed-by-
intuition.html)

As always, it's about a healthy balance :)

------
aashishkoirala
Oh yes, and we can all gather around and sing kumbaya and hug each other. Get
real and give me a break!

------
PaulHoule
Another issue is that a competitor validates your concept.

It's seen time and time again that having multiple drug categories in a
concept (say SSRI, proton pump inhibitor, etc.) validates the concept and
encourages the sale of those drugs.

------
dpeck
If someone says it isn't about the money, it's about the money.

~~~
jotm
Not really, you could really want to work just for the betterment of mankind -
but the money are a necessity, and sooner or later everyone realizes that
(which then makes them look stupid/hypocritical).

------
Aura1
Can't navigate back button on the "Docs" page.

~~~
rhizome
Ah, the old redirect-to-self trick. Reminds me of the days before YouTube had
ads!

~~~
littke
That's unintentional and doesn't happen for me. Can you elaborate on how to
reproduce? :)

~~~
rhizome
Go to the article page, click "Docs" in the nav bar, then click the back
button and note that the article page does not appear and you remain on the
docs page.

~~~
littke
Thank you.

------
cordite
How do they do that loading thing at the top with the green bar?

I've seen similar with red on Youtube, but I just assumed it was a google perk
for running on google chrome.

~~~
dsk139
There's a couple of libraries that help you implement this.
[http://ricostacruz.com/nprogress/](http://ricostacruz.com/nprogress/) is one.

------
elwell
From the comments by author:

> The final outcome might also be better if we do it ourselves rather than
> give everything away.

Yeah, that pretty much allows for negating everything above.

------
shurcooL
I like and with this mindset very much! Thanks for giving me a useful term to
describe this movement.

------
wudf
keep your friends close and enemies closer

~~~
rhizome
Internalizing Sun-Tzu is possibly the worst thing ever to happen to business.

------
michaelochurch
Yes, yes, I agree fully.

The problem is that the philistines can't motivate themselves to do _anything_
without a competitive frame. They just fall into pointless favor-trading and
rent-seeking. They see creation for its own sake as self-indulgent, manic,
pointless, or (gasp!) _effeminate_. The result is that motivations like "build
cool shit" or "help people" are cast as reckless and irresponsible, vision
goes away, and reliable mediocrity becomes the new game of the day. With
competing to excel rendered impossible, people compete instead to suffer in
pointless social competitions that have a flavor of reality TV.

There's this negative stereotype that engineers "don't want to concern
themselves with the business", and that they'd rather shut themselves away in
an ivory tower and build "cool" stuff that no one cares about. That's not true
at all! However, they _refuse_ (often passively, because to be active in it
leads to professional adversity) to subordinate themselves to the business,
especially when the business seems to have no vision, no real purpose for
existing, and a cost-cutting mentality that squashes excellence.

Often, the only way to get the MBA-culture philistines to do the right thing
(and let the creative geniuses shine) is to create a sense of competition and
existential crisis. "We have to crush Facebook before they crush us. We need
this autonomy for our best people." Meanwhile, Facebook doesn't give a damn
about "crushing" anyone. The problem is that the people who are the _best_ at
creating a sense of existential crisis are the ones who excel at artificial
scarcity and its theater-- psychopaths. The long-term consequences of this
competitive mentality (often the only alternative to executive, rent-seeking
complacency) are horrible.

I'd _love_ to see the excellence mentality become more common. You're starting
to see it in open allocation cultures like Valve. We need a million times more
of that because, you're right, OP, we're _not_ in competition. We're just
trying to fucking live well. No one has to lose.

~~~
exelius
Facebook may not care about crushing anyone, but by virtue of their size and
reach they can inadvertently crush people by launching a product because
Facebook thinks it would be a useful product for their users. Companies rarely
do things out of spite like that; but the idea is if your market is really
worth some money, Facebook or Google will eventually be interested in it and
your goal is to be big enough by the time that happens to successfully compete
with them (or sell to them.) If your idea is really a good one, these
companies have enough smart people working for them that they will come to it
on their own eventually.

