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.