Commoditizing Suppliers
Aggregators, by virtue of owning demand, gain power over suppliers which become modularized and commoditized.
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The Moat Map describes the correlation between the degree of supplier differentiation and the externalization (or internalization) of a company’s network effect.
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Ride-sharing is a winner-take-all market that depends on controlling demand more than it does supply.
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Publishers are trying to threaten Google again, apparently unaware that because of the Internet they have no power: that flows to the platforms that control discovery.
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The Cost of Apple News
Apple News is primed to offer a subscription bundle, but publishers should be wary of being Aggregated.
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Spotify’s Podcast Aggregation Play
Spotify is making a major move into podcasts, where it appears to have clear designs to be the sort of Aggregator it cannot be when it comes to music.
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The State of Technology at the End of 2018
The State of Technology, at least in the enterprise space, is strong; consumer tech is another story, and it is time to question the dominance of big companies like Google.
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Antitrust, the App Store, and Apple
Apple’s case before the Supreme Court is about standing; Apple has a strong case. That, though, doesn’t mean the App Store isn’t a monopoly — and that Apple isn’t increasingly predicated on rent-seeking.
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Spotify Earnings; Spotify, Supply, and Acquiring Marginal Customers; Spotify’s Research and Development
Spotify’s earnings point to a disturbing trend of the company needing to spend to acquire marginal customers; this makes sense because the company does not have power over supply
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The Bill Gates Line
Understanding the differences between aggregators and platforms matters for companies interacting with them and also regulators considering antitrust.
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The Moat Map Follow-up; Uber, YouTube, and Spotify; The Public Cloud and Scale
More on The Moat Map, and how it applies to Uber, YouTube, Spotify and the public cloud.