By contrast, consumer software tools that enhance human agency, that serve us when we are most creative and intentional, are often built by hobbyists and used by a handful of nerds. If such a tool ever gets too successful one of the Marl-serving companies, flush with cash from advertising or growth-hungry venture capital, will acquire it and kill... See more

Slack is already a top quartile SaaS company trading like a bottom quartile SaaS company because of that age-old worry that “Microsoft will just crush it.”

The platform economy as it is currently constituted—highly centralized, highly mediated, with critical decisions made by a select few—risks replicating the same problems that have led to widespread burnout, financial precarity, and erosion of workers’ rights in the traditional economy.