The Flawed Thinking of Cannibalization at the Top
“Only a few churches will be dominant at the top. The rest will be cannibalized.”
I’ve heard this said by a few when talking about streaming your church service online. The basic idea is only a handful of churches will have large online experiences because the user has a limited amount of hours a week, and the better experiences will win. There are many large churches, but there won’t be many sizeable online church experiences since everyone is competing with everyone online. No geography restrictions with the internet mean little to no friction to visit your online church. The largest experiences will get larger, and the smaller will stay small. Kind of like the rich get richer argument.
My response:
I don’t think the market is largest enough to justify this argument. It might be true for Netflix/Disney+ vs. everyone else and Facebook/Google vs. everyone else, but the online church space is small compared to the general market for most internet companies.
More importantly, the point of offering your church service online isn’t to reach the world, but to reach who your church is called to reach. Think of your target audience and not the entire internet. Focus on local not global. Leverage the internet to evangelize and disciple the people your church is best equipped to reach. Think small with the very big internet.
Don’t worry about dominating the top. Narrow gate thinking.
Who is your church’s persona? Build a strategy online around the answer.