Poison

The Poison play is about strategic sabotage. If you can’t or don’t want to dominate a future space, you can still deny it to others.

Poison tactics shape perception, introduce friction, or distort incentives, making the space unattractive, unstable, or unviable. It’s a scorched earth approach—used to derail a competitor’s roadmap, destroy a nascent ecosystem, or stall innovation that threatens your position.

Poison isn’t about winning. It’s about ensuring no one else does.

Comparison of Poison Strategies

Strategy & Link	Primary Goal/Intent	Key Mechanisms	Typical Use Cases/Scenarios	Main Benefits (for the User of Poison)	Key Climatic Patterns
Designed to Fail	Ensure a competitor's project or initiative is unsuccessful by subtle sabotage.	Introducing flaws, withholding critical information/support, setting unrealistic expectations, mismanaging resources.	When directly opposing a project is not feasible; to undermine a competitor's new venture or product launch without overt aggression.	Competitor's initiative fails, resources wasted by competitor, maintains status quo or your relative advantage.	Competitors actions will change the game, Most competitors have poor situational awareness
Insertion	Introduce elements into a competitor's system or ecosystem that cause harm or instability.	Planting misinformation, introducing incompatible components, fostering dissent in communities, exploiting vulnerabilities.	To disrupt competitor operations, discredit their offerings, or create internal conflict within their ecosystem.	Competitor instability, loss of trust in competitor's offerings, slowing competitor's progress.	Characteristics change (negatively for the target), Inertia can kill an organisation (if they can't adapt to the poison)
Licensing	Use restrictive or complex licensing terms to hinder adoption or use by others.	Predatory licensing, complex legal terms, high fees for critical components, FUD around IPR.	To make a competitor's product unviable, to slow adoption of an open standard you wish to control or supersede.	Reduced competition, increased dependency on your alternatives, revenue generation through punitive licensing.	Capital flows to new areas of value (away from poisoned area), [IPR as a decelerator (implicit)]