--- title: "Lure" description: "A lure is something attractive placed in front of the target so that the target moves toward you on its own." canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/lure/ locale: en --- # Lure > Markdown twin of https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/lure/ — 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 Category: Deception · Role: Takes · Depth: — Gist: attractive traps ## Moats > A lure takes: it wins the approach and holds nothing, because the target's decision to stay is made by whatever they find after the bait, and that is a different mechanism with its own row. A free tier feeding a habit is the habit's moat; a cheap printer feeding a cartridge lock is switching costs. Strip those away and a lure is an acquisition cost, paid per target, with no compounding: each lure has to be re-baited, and a population learns it. That is why a lure has no moat of its own on the ruler. Add the jaw and the moat appears — under the jaw's name, not the lure's. ## Summary A lure is something attractive placed in front of the target so that the target moves toward you on its own. A free tier, a loss leader, a printer priced near cost, a fake server that looks worth breaking into. The lure wins the approach. Whether anything closes behind the target is a different mechanism, and a different moat. ## How it works The target has a want, and the lure is the cheapest possible satisfaction of it placed on your side of the line. The shopper wants a cheap chicken; the developer wants a free plan; the attacker wants a server with weak passwords. Approaching costs the target nothing, so they approach. The lure's work is done at that moment: it turned a stranger who was comparing options into someone standing inside your door. What happens next is not the lure. If there is a jaw — a switching cost, a habit, a base of files or cartridges that only fit you — the target stays, and that jaw is the moat. If there is no jaw, the target takes the bait and leaves, and you have paid to feed them. Lures also teach: the second shopper cherry-picks the chicken, the second developer never upgrades, the second attacker checks whether the server is a plant. A lure works best on a population that has not met it yet. ## Do you have it - A visible share of your customers came in through one deliberately underpriced or free thing and then bought something else. - You can name the item you lose money on and the item that pays for it, and the second only sells after the first. - In security, you run a server nobody legitimate touches, and its first login is your alarm. - Your free tier's limits sit at the point where a user's files, data or habits are already yours. ## How to dig it - Choose one want the target already has and satisfy it below cost — a free plan, a cheap device, a tool that gives away a result. - Design the jaw before the bait: what closes behind the target, and how many steps in it closes. - Put the paywall at the point of accumulated value — stored files, saved history, integrations wired in — not at the door. - Track who takes the bait and leaves; if that share grows, the population has learnt the lure and it needs re-baiting. ## How it erodes - Cherry-pickers: a population learns to take the bait and nothing else, and the lure becomes a pure cost. - A rival offers the same bait with a better jaw or no jaw at all, and the approach happens at their door instead. - A regulator or a platform bans the trap part — teaser rates, card-on-file trials, cartridge lockouts — leaving you with the bait and the bill. - The jaw was never built: users hit the paywall with nothing accumulated and simply leave. ## Solo, without capital A solo builder can set a lure this quarter: a free tool that does one job completely, a free tier, a result given away in exchange for an email. What they cannot afford is bait with no jaw — a subsidy paid per user needs capital to outlast the cherry-pickers. Put the trap where value accumulates in the product itself, so the only cost is the free thing's hosting bill. ## In nature, in business Nature: anglerfish Business: honeypot - **Anglerfish** — Dangles a glowing lure on a stalk in front of its mouth in the dark, and the fish that comes to the light is eaten. - **HP** — Sells home printers cheaply and earns on cartridges, with firmware that rejects third-party ink once the printer is in the house. - **Dropbox** — Gave storage away free and paid referrers in extra space; the paid tier caught users only after their files already lived there. ## Combines with - [Bundling](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/bundling/) — Free with something people already want is a lure that costs you nothing extra; the jaw is the other thing they now use. - [Low-friction](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/low-friction/) — The bait only works if reaching it is effortless; every form field between the target and the lure is a fish that turns away. - [Usership](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/usership/) — A lure fills the pond; once enough targets are inside, they keep each other there, and that is where the moat is. - [Affordability](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/affordability/) — A permanently low price is a lure without a trap; the two combine when the cheap thing leads to something the target cannot leave. [This strategy on the map](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=lure) [Map this combination](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=lure,bundling,low-friction,usership,affordability) ## Fights with - [Luxury](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/luxury/) — A deliberately high price is a status signal; a lure at the door tells the buyer the status was never real. - [Transparency](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/transparency/) — The trap works when its cost is seen late; visible inner workings show the jaw before the target has approached. - [Scarcity](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/scarcity/) — Artificially limited quantity holds the target back; a lure pushes it forward, and you cannot ration the bait and give it away at once. [Map this tension](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=lure,luxury,transparency,scarcity) ## Source Strategy taxonomy © kepano (Steph Ango), paraphrased with attribution. Role and moat mapping © Moat Atlas. https://stephango.com/ ## Related - HTML version of this page: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/lure/ - Русский: https://moa.giglabo.com/ru/strategies/lure/ - Previous: Decoy — https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/decoy/ - Next: Infiltration — https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/infiltration/ - Atlas: https://moa.giglabo.com/ - Catalogue: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/ - Calculator: https://moa.giglabo.com/calculator/ - Strategies: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/ - Site map for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt