---
title: "Counter-positioning"
description: "The attacker's moat, in Helmer's sense: a business model the incumbent can see and understand — and cannot copy, because copying it would destroy its own revenue. The incumbent is protected against equals and defenceless against whoever finds its moats unprofitable to repeat."
canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/17/
locale: en
---

# Counter-positioning

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- Sheet 17 / 35

## Passport

- **Rock**: Position
- **Depth**: 3 · Drill rig
- **Time to dig**: 3–10 years
- **Capital**: ◐ · medium
- **Solo**: ✓ solo-reachable
- **AI**: → eroding
- **Rent**: ✗ not for sale

## Essence

The attacker's moat, in Helmer's sense: a business model the incumbent can see and understand — and cannot copy, because copying it would destroy its own revenue. The incumbent is protected against equals and defenceless against whoever finds its moats unprofitable to repeat.

## How it is built

### Netflix against Blockbuster — a model that kills the other P&L

A subscription with no late fees attacked exactly where Blockbuster earned: the fines brought it hundreds of millions a year. To copy Netflix meant demolishing a meaningful part of its own revenue by hand and picking a fight with the economics of thousands of stores — so Blockbuster hesitated, tried half-measures and was too late. The attacker chose a model such that a rational incumbent would decide not to answer.

### Vanguard — ownership structure as irreproducibility

Index funds at minimal fees, plus a cooperative structure in which the funds are owned by their unit holders: to answer, active managers would have to give up the fees the whole industry lives on. For decades the smart money laughed at index funds, because not laughing was too expensive.

### Dollar Shave Club against Gillette

A cheap subscription sold direct against premium blades with enormous margin and retail partners: the answer — cut prices and move to subscription — broke both Gillette's margin and its relationships with retail. P&G eventually answered not with a copy but through the market: Unilever bought DSC for a billion dollars.

## How it is bypassed

### The incumbent swallows the pill

Counter-positioning rests on the incumbent's unwillingness to hurt itself — until the pain of doing nothing gets worse. Schwab zeroed its commissions overnight after years of pressure from Robinhood, sacrificing hundreds of millions in revenue, and Robinhood's main difference evaporated. Disney launched Disney+ and cannibalised its own licensing income. Once the incumbent commits, its scale and brand work against the attacker.

### Buy what cannot be copied

Unilever bought DSC, Salesforce bought Slack, Facebook bought Instagram: an acquisition removes the conflict of models without forcing the incumbent to break itself. For the attacker it is both a winning outcome and the end of the moat.

### Second followers with no baggage

Counter-positioning protects you from the incumbent, not from other newcomers: once the model is proven, it is copied by everyone with nothing to lose. Every broker repeated Robinhood's zero commissions, and Robinhood itself was left with no counter-positioning moat and had to build others in a hurry. This is a moat with an expiry date: it buys years of lead that have to be converted in time.

## Verdict

The newcomer's most powerful weapon against a protected giant: a model that costs the incumbent more to answer than to endure. But it is a melting moat — it lives until capitulation, acquisition, or the second follower.

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