---
title: "Community"
description: "People who identify with the product and do its work for free: they onboard newcomers, produce content and templates, answer in forums and defend it in arguments. A relative of network effects and brand trust, but a separate mechanism — a community is labour and loyalty, not a graph and not a reputation."
canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/21/
locale: en
---

# Community

> Markdown twin of https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/21/ — the same content as the HTML page, a fraction of the bytes.
> Every page of this site has one: append `.md` to any URL, or `index.md` to a directory URL.
> Site structure and the full page list for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt

- Sheet 21 / 35

## Passport

- **Rock**: Human networks
- **Depth**: 2 · Excavator
- **Time to dig**: 1–3 years
- **Capital**: ○ · low
- **Solo**: ✓ solo-reachable
- **AI**: ↑ AI-resistant
- **Rent**: ✗ not for sale

## Essence

People who identify with the product and do its work for free: they onboard newcomers, produce content and templates, answer in forums and defend it in arguments. A relative of network effects and brand trust, but a separate mechanism — a community is labour and loyalty, not a graph and not a reputation.

## How it is built

### Notion — the community as the marketing and product department

Ambassadors, campus leaders, template creators, YouTubers showing their setups: a huge part of onboarding, of the content and even of the product's value — the templates — was produced by the community for free, because people were building personal brands on Notion. The company invested not in advertising but in recognition programmes and tools for creators.

### Figma — the identity of a profession

Config as the design conference, community files, plugins, public company figures inside the design scene: Figma made itself part of a professional identity. When the tool is part of who someone believes they are, switching is not a change of software but a change of identity.

### Obsidian — a cult around a tiny team

A minuscule company with a fanatical community: a forum, hundreds of user-made plugins, and the manifesto of local files as an ideology. Instructive for solo and indie builders — a community is the moat available without a budget, given a position, openness and direct contact between founders and users.

## How it is bypassed

### A community follows craft and leaves after a betrayal

It is bound by no contract: Evernote lost its evangelists as the product degraded, Reddit got a moderator revolt — community labour disappears faster than revenue. The attacker wins with genuine openness: a public roadmap, founders in the Discord, fast responses. A small team does that better than a corporation by definition.

### You cannot buy one, but you can seed one

Astroturfing is recognised and punished with lost trust, but early access, recognition for niche champions and tools for creators are legitimate seeding. A competitor facing an incumbent with a tired community deliberately courts its most visible malcontents — they bring the tails of their audiences with them.

### Communities live on neutral ground

The real conversation happens in Discord, on Reddit and on X, not on the vendor's forum: a community does not fully belong to the company, and the attacker is present in the same spaces on equal terms. A community moat cannot be locked — it can only go on being deserved.

## Verdict

The cheapest of the strong moats, and the only one where a solo founder has a structural advantage over a corporation. It is bypassed when somebody betrays their own community, and by patient, honest seeding.

## Related

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