Platform incentive gravity: it's why all the rental bikes end up at the bottom of hills, and why the most "popular" game on Roblox rewards you for doing absolutely nothing.

Tom's teenagers declare Roblox dead, overrun by "slop games" where 200 million people "play" by opening the game and walking away. Meanwhile, the rich, creative games they actually love are withering with tiny player counts.

We explore how platform economics create a gravitational pull toward the lowest common denominator—and what this reveals about meaning, metrics, and the hollowing out of engagement across all digital spaces.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• Why the most popular Roblox game rewards you for pressing zero keys
• The bike rental study that perfectly explains platform incentive gravity
• How gamification strips meaning in service of metrics
• Why Tom's teenagers are already jumping ship to find actual creativity
• The connection between AFK mechanics, auto-clickers, and social media engagement
• Trail Makers vs. slop games: what actually captivates vs. what just accumulates hours
• Whether this connects to a broader meaning-making crisis
• How to recognise when you're trapped in someone else's incentive structure

Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

OR: Swimming in sauce.

From LinkedIn rants to airfield-based barbecue ... we talk about why adaptation beats detailed planning.

When your carefully planned day out becomes a disaster, do you stick to the plan or pivot? We start with LinkedIn beef about scrappy MVPs, detour through a failed town visit with a toddler, and end up at an airfield watching planes while eating incredible brisket.

This meandering conversation explores the tension between wanting to craft something properly and needing to experiment your way forward - whether you're building products, planning holidays, or figuring out your next career move.

Including-but-not-limited-to:

• Why demanding a perfect brief upfront can be a career-limiting move
• The false choice between "scrappy rubbish" and "proper quality"
• How 1% of ideas actually work (so why invest everything in detailed plans?)
• The three routes to getting unstuck: power, influence, or acceptance
• Why external forcing functions are needed to kill zombie projects
• When to follow the itinerary vs when to throw seeds and see what grows
• The sliding scale from planned group tours to "book a flight and figure it out"
• How high stakes + high novelty requires a different kind of planning
• Why you can't read the label from inside the bottle

Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remember that dress? The one that had the entire internet at each other's throats about whether it was white and gold or black and blue?

Turns out it reveals something profound about how our brains work—and why getting your team aligned on a vision might be the wrong goal entirely.

We dive into the viral dress phenomenon and explore what it teaches us about prediction, perception, and the challenge of alignment in organisations. From Andy Clark's "Experience Machine" to the bunny-duck illusion, we explore why our brains are prediction engines rather than cameras, and how this changes everything about strategy.

Some stuff we talk about:

• Why your brain sends four times more signals outward than it receives inward (and what this means for finding your keys)
• The real difference between the dress debate and the bunny-duck illusion
• How the dress reveals the fundamental problem with forcing everyone to see the same vision
• JP Castlin's three requirements for effective aspirations: precise, ambiguous, and fractal
• Why zooming out beats analysing pixels when you're stuck in disagreement
• The via negativa approach: sometimes it's easier to agree on where you DON'T want to go
• Storyboarding to envision behaviours not features

This one's for anyone who's ever wondered why smart people can look at the same thing and see completely different realities. And anyone who's tired of vision statements that sound like expensive wishes.

Drop us a line: tentacles@crownandreach.com

References

• "The Experience Machine" by Andy Clark https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313594/the-experience-machine-by-clark-andy/9780141990583
• JP Castlin's Strategy in Praxis https://strategyinpraxis.substack.com/
• The dress (white/gold vs black/blue) https://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/
• Bunny-ducking: https://reach.crownandreach.com/posts/bunny-ducking
• Multiverse Mapping https://multiversemapping.com
• Pitch Provocations

Find out more about us and our work at crownandreach.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.