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- What I'm Reading, Saving, and Rethinking - June 27th, 2025
What I'm Reading, Saving, and Rethinking - June 27th, 2025
Practical marketing insights from the trenches: summarized, questioned, and ready for action.
Adam Lasky
June 27, 2025
Happy Friday! Every week, I save dozens of posts, articles, and newsletters that challenge my thinking. Here's what stood out this week and why I think it's worth your time too.
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🔥 This Week's Saves
TL;DR: Vampire attacks, when suppliers siphon off demand to spin up their own competing marketplace or service, are a systemic risk baked into every aggregator-style business. Your biggest strength (aggregated demand) is also your biggest liability.
Why It’s Worth Your Time: If you run or invest in marketplaces, this will make you paranoid in the best way. It breaks down not just how these attacks happen, but why they’re often inevitable and what moat dynamics actually work.
One Quote to Chew On:
“If the internet had a blood bank, it would be Craigslist. The minimalist classified site has inadvertently "donated" its user base to launch numerous billion-dollar marketplaces. Its simple design, massive user base, and limited innovation made it the perfect target.”
How I’m Using This: I used to think product was the moat. Now I’m seeing the real moats are systemic: data feedback loops, downstream distribution, infrastructure lock-in. I’m reverse-engineering where supply builds leverage against us and designing that leverage out.
TL;DR: Google is eating the internet with AI overviews, skipping the trip to your site completely in favor of synthesizing a version of your content, keeping everyone on their site.
Why It’s Worth Your Time: This is the clearest, most tactical breakdown I’ve seen on how “Google Zero” (where zero clicks leave Google) erodes the SEO moat from a different angle. The first angle was Google’s switch to more paid ad real estate on commercial query SERPs. “Google Zero” is what happens when Google tries to monetize non-commercial queries.
One Quote to Chew On:
“No one anticipated some giant cyborg stealing all our content, synthesizing it with everything else, to come back and compete with us. And actively choosing to give us limited attribution or no compensation for this.”
How I’m Using This: I’m rethinking SEO as a syndication problem, not a traffic problem. The goal isn’t just to rank anymore (and even that goal pays less and less dividends because of lower click yields) but rather to be quoted by AI. That means shorter answers, better structure, and building domain authority so Google favors your answer when summarizing. **Side note: it’s worthwhile to build an LLMs.txt file.
TL;DR: Duolingo’s gamified UX is fun but it’s not going to help you converse with a 7 year old native speaker. If you build for gamification, you’ll end up with a mobile game instead of a language-learning tool. The dopamine hits are crowding out actual progress. You are what you emphasize.
Why It’s Worth Your Time: This is a smart teardown of how product-led growth can drift into product-led retention theater. It’s a cautionary tale for anyone designing habits: when gamification overshadows purpose, even the most engaged users churn, not from lack of use but from lack of meaning.
One Quote to Chew On:
“But playing is not the same as learning, and gamification is not the route to fluency.”
How I’m Using This: I’m rethinking how we balance motivation mechanics vs. mastery mechanics. Engagement isn't always a win if it's built on novelty or sunk cost. I’m asking: Is this habit helping users get better, or just keeping them busy?
This newsletter is for you. What marketing challenges are you facing in your marketing journey? Reply directly to this email with your questions or topics you'd like to see covered in future issues.
Until next week,
P.S. Found this helpful? Forward it to another founder who might benefit—we're all in this together.