ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Sign war

Okay kiddo, have you ever played a game where you try to one-up someone else? Maybe you both keep adding to a drawing or telling jokes to see who can make it funnier? That's kind of like what a sign war is!

Picture this: you own a store and your neighbor owns one too. Both of you have signs outside your stores to show people what you sell. But then, one day, you decide to make your sign a little bigger and brighter so people will pay more attention to your store.

But your neighbor sees your sign and thinks, "Uh oh, they're trying to outshine me!" So they make their sign even bigger and brighter to catch people's attention.

And guess what? You see their sign and think, "Uh oh, they're trying to outshine me now!" So you make your sign even bigger and brighter than before.

This keeps going back and forth, with you and your neighbor adding bigger and brighter signs to your stores to see who can get more attention from people walking by.

It's like a friendly competition between businesses to have the flashiest sign and get noticed by passersby. But, in the end, both of you benefit because people start to notice both of your stores more, and you both might get more customers.

So that's what a sign war is, a competition between businesses to see who can have the biggest and brightest sign to catch people's attention!