I remember reading this in 2018 and thinking 'damn, aggregation theory continues to go ham.'
Yet, the frustrations these companies feel is a real one. Even as far as VC conversations it's now a meme in those circles that you get asked 'will Google moving into your niche kill your business?'
Aggregation theory is a useful framework for thinking about aggregators (like Facebook et Google) and what they are likely to do versus unlikely to.
Not all of us can be platforms (obviously). It's a much tougher multi-sided die.
Difference between platforms and aggregators @benthompson @stratechery
And I remember when we raised money from Bill Gates, 3 or 4 months after — like our funding history was $5M, $83 M, $500M, and then $15B. When that 15B happened a few months after Facebook Platform and Gates said something along the lines of, “That’s a crock of shit. This isn’t a platform. A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it. Then it’s a platform.”
This is ultimately the most important distinction between platforms and aggregators: platforms are powerful because they facilitate a relationship between 3rd-party suppliers and end users; aggregators, on the other hand, intermediate and control it.
I remember reading this in 2018 and thinking 'damn, aggregation theory continues to go ham.'
Yet, the frustrations these companies feel is a real one. Even as far as VC conversations it's now a meme in those circles that you get asked 'will Google moving into your niche kill your business?'
Aggregation theory is a useful framework for thinking about aggregators (like Facebook et Google) and what they are likely to do versus unlikely to.
Not all of us can be platforms (obviously). It's a much tougher multi-sided die.
Difference between platforms and aggregators @benthompson @stratechery