You’re not a customer. You’re a hostage.

I’ve been selling online since 2005.

And platforms keep pulling the same trick.

They attract you. They trap you. Then they squeeze you dry.

A friend of mine teaches Tai Chi.

Hundreds of videos. Years of work.

He uploaded everything to a platform that promised to handle it all.

Courses. Community. Hosting.

Weeks of work.

Then the email arrived.

Video hosting was being cut. New tiers. New pricing.

He moved platforms.

Uploaded everything again.

A year later — same story.

Cory Doctorow calls it ‘enshittification’.

Platforms start by serving you. Then they serve their investors.

Eventually they squeeze the people who built them.

You’re not a customer.

You’re a hostage.

The fix is simple.

Never build your house on someone else’s land.

Store your videos where video is the only job.

Vimeo, for instance.

Your course platform embeds them.

If the platform changes the rules?

Update the embed.

Five minutes instead of five weeks.

All-in-one platforms sell convenience.

What they’re really selling is dependency.

Rented ground dressed up as infrastructure.

I learned this the hard way.

Build on someone else’s land long enough, and the rules always change.

So here’s the question:

Which platform could destroy your business tomorrow if it changed the rules?

That’s the thing that needs fixing.