Two kinds of customers

Most online media define their customers like this:

A. Users
B. Advertisers

Both groups are important, but to know which one should really have an influence on the shape of your product, you should understand how the two groups are related.

To do this, try this simple exercise - imagine for a minute what would happen to one of the groups, if the other one dropped by 90% for a month.

If users go elsewhere, the advertisers will leave, and won’t come back. Conversely, when advertisers go missing, users don’t really notice and because there’s less distraction and pages load faster, their engagement actually goes up.

If that’s the case, shouldn’t users be the only audience that influences the shape of your product?