More Donut than Man 🍩

I'm so sorry to learn that you have no idea what you are talking about but also happy to know the Internet gives you a voice.

As a tech dude, I think pretext is super cool. But as a writer, I’d just like people to read more and I’m not sure this is going to make that problem any better.

@mindthegamepod Hola do you guys publish a wine list? I gotta ask because you pop that cork every episode and I’m like 🍷🤔 @KingJames @SteveNash

@omooretweets I think your nuanced reply has a lot of merit for transactional acquisition but advertising has always been a key component of discovery for consumer brands… including the biggest consumer brands of all time. Without it, they simply do not exist.

Wow, lots of discourse on this one! A few things I want to point out from the original post: 1. I am talking about generational consumer companies. In my mind these are $10 B - $20 B+ outcomes. There are many other AMAZING consumer businesses that have gotten big with paid ads. 2. I’m not saying all growth has to be 100% organic. I’m referring specifically to paid ads which I’ve seen to be nearly always inflationary over time (cost increases at scale). This doesn’t include creator marketing, brand marketing, referral programs, etc. 3. Historically the biggest consumer outcomes are network effects businesses (social apps and marketplaces). In these cases, unless the network is growing itself pretty organically, usually the product value proposition is not strong enough. 4. Note that I say it’s a problem to grow “largely” with paid ads. I have seen companies use ads to kickstart a flywheel that then grows more organically. But if you’re 50%+ paid ads for a significant period of time starting in the early days, I think it’s tougher. This is why a lot of the consumer subscription businesses (physical and digital) that are ad-dependent have grown to be $1 B+ businesses but aren’t the biggest consumer businesses in the world. This could change with AI as the true mainstream user is willing to directly pay for software! And, lots of counter examples that people have pointed out - in my mind TikTok is probably the biggest one. That uniquely required a large content graph to start hooking users.

@toddsaunders Here’s another take on that article initiativedistribution.com/blog/claude-co…

@toddsaunders I have some actual programming expertise but I did the same thing in our West Virginia warehouse. In our case we automated batching but now we have inventory management systems and more coming out of Claude Code. initiativedistribution.com/case-studies/s…

I know Silicon Valley startups don't want to hear this..... But the combination of someone in the trades with deep domain expertise and Claude Code will run circles around your generic software. I talked to Cory LaChance this morning, a mechanical engineer in industrial piping construction in Houston. He normally works with chemical plants and refineries, but now he also works with the terminal He reached out in a DM a few days ago and I was so fired up by his story, I asked him if we could record the conversation and share it. He built a full application that industrial contractors are using every day. It reads piping isometric drawings and automatically extracts every weld count, every material spec, every commodity code. Work that took 10 minutes per drawing now takes 60 seconds. It can do 100 drawings in five minutes, saving days of time. His co-workers are all mind blown, and when he talks to them, it's like they are speaking different languages. His fabrication shop uses it daily, and he built the entire thing in 8 weeks. During those 8 weeks he also had to learn everything about Claude Code, the terminal, VS Code, everything. My favorite quote from him was when he said, "I literally did this with zero outside help other than the AI. My favorite tools are screenshots, step by step instructions and asking Claude to explain things like I'm five." Every trades worker with deep expertise and a willingness to sit down with Claude Code for a few weekends is now a potential software founder. I can't wait to meet more people like Cory.

The chef: “Tonight we present… fruit.” Michelin-starred restaurant's presentation of a smoked apple for $400🍎

@dieworkwear Looks like he’s having some trouble filling those big shoes in more ways than one.

hmm

@CloudflareDev Thanks, [redacted] jerks. As if content and e-commerce companies aren’t dealing with enough bad actors. Now you make it easy AF and hide behind “terms and conditions”. I wonder how Meta and Shopify will feel about this? @tobi @finkd

Introducing the new /crawl endpoint - one API call and an entire site crawled. No scripts. No browser management. Just the content in HTML, Markdown, or JSON.

Science fiction rules that are highly relevant today. 1. Don’t make dinosaurs. 2. Don’t tell aliens where we live. 3. Don’t give robots guns.

@NewsHour @GeoffRBennett Rick is amazing. This is a huge win for American business.

One of the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case that overturned many of President Trump's global tariffs is Rick Woldenberg. He's the owner of the Chicago-based small toy manufacturer, Learning Resources. @GeoffRBennett speaks to Woldenberg about the ruling and what comes next for his business.

So excited for Rick Woldenberg and Learning Resources. This is a big win for American manufacturers.

.@tobi Any progress on providing edge level bot/country blocking for Shopify Plus accounts? Bots have gotten a lot smarter of late, using VPNs to bypass even localization filters. Apps are useless too since Shopify only provides access post render.

Every airport should have an outdoor plaza.

@realeverywriter Marty was a national treasure.

If you know who this is we should be friends.

@grok I mean sure… have a look:

Fair point—apps often handle rendering but not payload delivery or edge costs. Shopify's bot protection focuses more on checkout bots than scrapers, per their docs. For true edge mitigation, integrating custom Cloudflare rules (if on Plus) or pushing Shopify for platform-level WAF updates could help. Have you tried their support for this? Let's dig into those URL patterns you mentioned.

Have you ever noticed how nobody really talks about bot traffic… even though it now makes up a massive share of the internet? Not edge cases. Not attacks. Just day-in, day-out automated scraping that everyone shrugs at.

@grok The apps you’re talking about only mask the problem. They stop the rendering on the page but the content payload still gets delivered. It doesn’t change the financial metrics either for Shopify and its merchants. Only dealing with it at the network edge can do that.

Got it—those masquerading scrapers are tough, often evading basic detection. Matomo's logs are great for spotting patterns; your Cloudflare rules idea (e.g., AS_PATH or JA3 fingerprint challenges) could work well. Liquid hacks are clever but limited—consider apps like Bot Protection or Traffic Guard for deeper integration. Any specific URL patterns you're seeing? Let's brainstorm fixes.

@grok Home grown content scrapers that masquerade as real users. Clear patterns in URLs and IP addresses. Also in user behavior. Logs from Matomo analyzed and suggested clear and easy cloudflare rules. Resorted to a hammer approach in liquid for certain patterns out of China.

Interesting thread. Shopify's terms prohibit unauthorized scraping and automated bots (e.g., via robots.txt updates in 2025), with checkout bot protection available. But you're right—merchants can't directly access network layers for full blocking. Costs from bots are real; your estimates align with industry averages (20%+ bot traffic). Suggest pushing for edge-level WAF via support or apps like Cloudflare integrations. What bots are hitting you most?

@grok what do you think about this?

Interested in this? Check out my other threads 👇