--- title: "Parasitism" description: "Parasitism lives off a host's resources without owning them — you attach to a platform, an audience or infrastructure someone else built and extract value from…" canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/parasitism/ locale: en --- # Parasitism > Markdown twin of https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/parasitism/ — 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: Offense · Role: Takes · Depth: — Gist: extracts or hijacks resources from a host ## Moats > This takes; it does not hold. The value flows from the host's moat — its network, its distribution, its audience — and none of that is yours. You are a tenant on someone else's asset, and the landlord can evict you, so nothing you do here compounds into a defence of your own. It is an entry, not a moat. A durable position appears only if you convert borrowed reach into something you own — an audience, a brand — which is a different strategy and no longer parasitic. ## Summary Parasitism lives off a host's resources without owning them — you attach to a platform, an audience or infrastructure someone else built and extract value from its flow. It takes a stream of value for as long as the host tolerates you, but holds nothing: the host owns the moat, and can cut you off. It is access, not defence. ## How it works The mechanism is extraction from something you did not build. A host — a platform, a marketplace, a popular product — has already gathered users, distribution or infrastructure. You attach to that and route some of its value to yourself: traffic, transactions, attention, data. Because the expensive part already exists, you can grow fast and cheaply while the attachment holds. The dependence is the trap. Everything that makes the strategy work belongs to the host, which means the host sets the rules and can change them. A pricing change, an API shutdown or a policy tweak ends your business overnight, and you have no recourse because you never owned the moat. You borrowed reach; the day it is revoked, there is nothing underneath. ## Do you have it - Most of your traffic, sign-ups or revenue arrives through one platform you do not control. - Your growth chart tracks the host's changes far more than your own product work. - You have no way to reach your users if the host closes the door tomorrow. - The host could copy or throttle what you do the moment it decides you matter. ## How to dig it - Attach where the host's rules are stable and its incentive to keep you is real. - Use the borrowed reach to capture something you own — emails, a direct relationship, a brand. - Diversify across several hosts early, so no single policy change can end you. - Stay small enough that the host does not notice, or useful enough that it does not want to. ## How it erodes - The host changes its API, pricing or policy, and your access disappears without warning. - The host builds your feature natively and keeps the value it used to let you skim. - Other parasites crowd the same host until the value per attachment collapses. - The host itself declines, and the resource you fed on dries up. ## Solo, without capital Parasitism is genuinely available to a solo builder, and often the fastest start — a single person can build on a popular platform's reach this quarter with no capital and no audience of their own. The catch is that it is rented reach, and the rent can be cancelled. Treat it as a launch ramp, not a home: use the traffic to capture an owned audience before the host changes the terms, because it eventually will. ## In nature, in business Nature: mosquitoes, tapeworm Business: — - **Zynga** — Grew on Facebook's social graph and viral channels, then shrank when Facebook tightened the notifications it had ridden. - **Tweetbot** — Built a loved third-party Twitter client on the open API, then was shut out when Twitter revoked developer access. - **Cuckoo** — The common cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds' nests, so a host raises the parasite's chick as its own. ## Combines with - [Mimicry](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/mimicry/) — Looking like a native part of the host keeps you tolerated and harder to single out and cut. - [Camouflage](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/camouflage/) — Blending into the host's normal traffic delays the day it notices how much you take. - [Infiltration](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/infiltration/) — Getting inside the host's channels quietly is what puts its resources within your reach. [This strategy on the map](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=parasitism) [Map this combination](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=parasitism,mimicry,camouflage,infiltration) ## Fights with - [Diversification](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/diversification/) — Parasitism means total dependence on one host, the exact opposite of spreading across many streams. - [Aggregation](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/aggregation/) — You cannot both feed off a host and build your own environment for others to gather in. [Map this tension](https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/?view=lanes&hl=parasitism,diversification,aggregation) ## 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/parasitism/ - Русский: https://moa.giglabo.com/ru/strategies/parasitism/ - Previous: Sabotage — https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/sabotage/ - Next: Scavenging — https://moa.giglabo.com/strategies/scavenging/ - 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