When Educational Content Becomes a Sales Funnel
I recently watched a video by Ali Abdaal where he reflected on the failure of his mechanical keyboard product. (The video is over a year old, I've only just stumbled upon it.) While it was certainly interesting to see someone openly discuss a real-world failure, I couldn't shake the feeling that he overlooked a crucial reason why people reacted negatively to his product.
In the video, Ali discusses the mechanical keyboard he launched, aiming it at his audience who are keen on productivity, but not necessarily seasoned mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. He then went into a review of his keyboard by another YouTuber, Hipyo, a mechanical keyboard enthusiast. Hipyo, despite being satisfied with the keyboard's build quality, felt that similar products were available at a better price. His strong feelings on the matter led him to say “He’s trying to appeal to an audience that knows nothing about keyboards, but with a sense of authority of a productivity expert […] because of his authority, he’s trying to get them to not do the research. And that to me just feels a little bit scummy.”
Ali's reaction to this comment clearly showed his disagreement with being labeled "scummy." He argued that he never actively discouraged research, he simply didn't mention competing products. He drew parallels to standard product marketing, noting that companies typically avoid highlighting competitors because it can be detrimental to their sales. From his perspective, there was no issue with not explicitly encouraging his audience to research other mechanical keyboards on the market.
This is precisely where I believe the multiple roles Ali plays, as a business owner and entrepreneur, and as a productivity and educational content creator, create a problem he didn't fully grasp. For me, the core issue isn't about the ethics of not mentioning competitors in marketing. Instead, it's about the conflict of interest that emerges when you market your own product while holding a position of authority and trust.
When most individuals or companies market their products to new customers, these people don't usually start from a place of inherent trust, which means that you have to actively persuade them to make a purchase. In such scenarios, customers implicitly understand you're trying to sell them something and may not be acting solely in their best interests. (While some consumers do fall victim to this, I believe they also bear some responsibility for exercising caution with marketers.)
However, when you've cultivated a relationship built on trust outside the context of direct sales by positioning yourself as an educator on productivity and entrepreneurship, as Ali often does in his other videos, you inadvertently dilute the perception that you might be primarily focused on selling. This, in turn, makes your audience less inclined to seek alternatives when you do offer a product. So, even if Ali didn't actively discourage or prevent research, his audience was likely less inclined to do so due to his established authority. This might have been acceptable if his keyboard was genuinely best-in-class across all metrics, as that would align with providing the best for his audience. But this was clearly not the case here, and I suspect that's why Hipyo described it as "scummy."
In fact, this conflict of interest is nothing new. It's why teachers outside of the digital sphere typically have restrictions on endorsing products. For example, school teachers can't simply market their own products in the classroom, and advertising in children's TV programming generally doesn't come directly from the mouths of the presenters. This makes it all the more surprising to me that Ali didn't seem to recognize this as the underlying issue, instead focusing on it being solely a marketing message problem. Don't get me wrong, I still believe he excels at teaching people about productivity, building businesses, and navigating life in general, and I continue to enjoy his other content. But it certainly highlights that everyone has their blind spots.