The most popular and most important posts on Stratechery in 2020.
2020
Holiday Break: Weeks of December 21st and December 28th
Stratechery is on holiday the weeks of December 21st and December 28th; the next Daily Update will be on January 4. The full Daily Update posting schedule is here. All new subscribers since November 23, 2020, will have two weeks added to their subscriptions to guarantee one full month of DailySubscribe to Stratechery Plus to […]
Google Sued by States, Ranking the Cases, Fantasy Basketball and Silver Linings
Google’s many antitrust cases, ranked! Plus, one small way that COVID is pushing one group of friends into the future.
Context Collapse, Circles and Timing, Facebook’s Missing Platform
The ideas behind Social Networking 2.0 are not new, but the Idea Adoption Curve takes time. Plus, how Facebook missed its platform chance a decade ago.
Social Networking 2.0
Facebook and Twitter represent the v1 of Social Networking; it’s a bad copy of the analog world, whereas v2 is something unique to digital, and a lot more promising.
Disney’s Investor Day, Disney+ as Harvester, Disney’s Optionality
Disney’s investor day showed the power of differentiated IP and optionality.
Facebook Sued by FTC and States, The FTC’s Case, Antitrust and Politics
Facebook clearly tried to eliminate competition by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, but it’s not clear they were successful, which is the question that matters in a case that is ultimately about politics and power.
Privacy Labels and Lookalike Audiences
Apple’s position on privacy seems unimpeachable, but it ignores trade-offs, and risks a bad outcome for the Internet as a whole.
WarnerMedia to Stream Movies First Day, AT&T Versus HBO, Self-Disruption
WarnerMedia’s move to stream all of its movies on HBO Max appears to be value disruptive, but if the company is actually meaningfully responding to disruption, that was inevitable.
Stripe: Platform of Platforms
Stripe’s announcement of Treasury — banking-as-a-service — manifests the breadth of the company’s ambition.