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Growth & ASO2023

Free traffic is a loan the platform can call

The day your free channel turns paid is already scheduled.

Early 2023, Google Play swapped most of its organic auto-collections for ad inventory. To a player the home page looked identical; to us, free traffic had silently become paid traffic. A low-LTV player from Vietnam covers his keep against staff and servers — bolt a CPI onto his head and he’s a hole in the P&L.

Takeaway

Your unit economics live on someone else's platform. Model the day the free channel turns paid, because that day is coming whether you're invited or not.