alt Hacker NewsOnly if you’re optimizing for easily measured metrics alone. The value of a companies brand is not just some arbitrary number on a balance sheet it does influence the easily measured metrics like the number of customers you have across multiple segments in a noisy way. Which then influences your profits, which those institutional investors do care about.
That said, the general public is more price conscious than most people on HN. Walmart is generously rewarded for finding a good price:quality match for a huge segment of the population.
Reputation will only become more important as AI generated content permeates society, the name behind what you’ll read, watch or listen will be a bigger factor in whether anyone would commit minutes to hours to consuming what could be slop.
I think this erosion of trust will have far reaching consequences and people will become less open to ideas and experiences front strangers.
Running your brand into the ground in the early days will be costly.