You pretend that you only have one user type and that there’s a strictly linear value proposition that was met for everyone. You try to do more of the same, and it’s shocked pikachu faces all around as people respond very differently
Disproof
Name two customer types and show me their journeys
Consequences
You assume you'll be able to repeat success but your next cohort contains a different blend of users lacking context/capability and you crash
You waste budget targeting the wrong people or informing users who won't benefit
Eroding confidence starts to paralyse decision-making ability, good people leave and death spirals begin
Causes
Surprisingly, happens when companies try to be religious about their users - cultish devotion to ‘the user’ means you don’t talk about ‘which’ user
When some genius tries for an MAU-first-monetise-later play...in the 2020s
In cases where everyone is actually trying to do this, under-investment in tools to segment users at scale results in a thumb-suck with more steps
Approaches
Once you get past any performative user-centrism, solid hours put into user research with a quantitative bent
Realistically, no company is going to have its user focus down pat and greed/lack-of-discipline will generally result in targeting of multiple adjacent types knowingly or not