Article

Every Marketing Channel Sucks Right Now

Andrew Chen · andrewchen.substack.com Free Intermediate

Andrew Chen ran growth at Uber and a16z, and his core idea here, the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, is exactly why a channel that looked like it was working quietly stops. He pushes you past the big channels everyone claims are working toward the smaller ones that actually move real users before you have scale. It reframes the question from is this channel popular to is this channel still working for me, which is the honest version.

• Every channel decays: what worked six months ago crowds out and gets expensive, so a flat or falling result is the norm, not a personal failure
• The channels that feel less impressive (the small ones) often convert real users pre-scale better than the big ones you feel you should be on
• Judge a channel by users it actually brings and keeps, not by traffic or impressions that feel good but do not compound