Paid promotion in publications is a much more gentler way to advertise though compared to modern internet advertising. Back in the day I'd buy computer magazines - basically the whole point of which was to make me aware of new products. But the articles were at least somewhat at arm's length and not pure ad copy.

Yeah you can still buy subscriptions to substacks where people recommend you products to buy in certain categories, the entire Semianalysis thing is substack about which GPU/AI Accelerator to buy.

This doesn't in the slightest replace ads though. Before modern internet advertising we had advertising in whatever else had your attention. Ads were meant as we way to simplify and ease distribution.

It's a horrible business in terms of user experience but it's purpose isn't user experience it's meant for businesses to be able to streamline their outreach for much cheaper than the alternatives, imagine cold calls, emails, door knocks, door to door sales has died for this very reason.

I am not trying to explain away the issues and societal problems but they have value of companies otherwise they wouldn't exist. However much people would like to pretend CEOs and founders aren't completely retared.

For initial distribution spikes Ads are the best possible solution, very expensive yes, but if your goal is growth Ads are the most efficient solution since they almost linearly convert spending into visibility in turn producing growth.

Horrible way to do stuff but it's what it is.

That's a fair point, I wasn't really accounting for new products/services in that statement.

Word of mouth is one of the the oldest ways and it can still be very useful. It tends to work best when your product is actually any good though. If you have a product that really is amazing you won't have to manipulate people into paying for it, and you won't be able to stop people from telling others about how great it is.

chess.com and lichess

Despite lichess being better in every way except marketing, it's still #2.

It's very impressive word of mouth got it to #2, but marketing experts are marketing experts.

the name matters, chess.com= automatically associates with something central about chess. (dot com) lich-ess can be read as lich-chess or leeches, both leave repulsive associations, effectively sub-conscious anti-marketing.

So it's all about who has millions of dollars to buy common word domain names from scalpers. That's a marketing expense.

The "lichess" name is terrible, the way the word itself looks is off-putting.

It's like why they use sharp points in the hazmat symbol, it just looks bad even if you don't know what it means.

Most new products don’t get advertised. That happens later after they’ve made some initial sales. Those initial sales often happen from just placing it on some shelf space, real or virtual, where relevant consumers are liable to find it.

Have you ever built or sold products, worked in a startup? I have worked in several many tried the if we build it they will come strat and it fell flat.

The only companies that have made any real money have had to use Ads from the very start.

You can catch lightining in a bottle but exceptions here prove the rule.

It's absurd to think anyone will care about your product if you don't.

This isnt if you build it thehy will come. It is about placing it on shelves where your customers already are. Most products I buy are exactly this.