Platforms with Joe Wadcan // Metamuse podcast episode 63

New digital platforms enable people to earn a livelihood in a way that highlights their individuality. These platforms give providers greater ability to build customer relationships, increased support in growing their businesses, and better tools for differentiating themselves from the competition. In the process, they’re fueling a new model of int... See more

In the Web2 era, platforms like Twitter and Facebook ran powerful but temporary versions of the “commoditize the complement” strategy early in their growth phase. By giving away their products and APIs for free, the platforms were able to attract invaluable social graphs and user data, which in turn helped attract an ecosystem of third-party develo... See more

Platform workers often face substantial lock-in, driven by network effects and lack of data portability. Platforms intermediate transactions, and as a result, they gather market data and often control customer relationships. This type of capital cannot be easily ported over to other platforms or worker-owned properties, which means that platform la... See more

Platforms today are double-edged swords for creators: creators rely on them to grow their audience, but also want to be able to reduce their dependence on them over time.

When it comes to platform vs tools, we prefer companies that start as a tool and then develop as a platform. These are startups that solve a complete business problem. They figure out how to get the data and then how to build a loop to learn from that data and create a user experience that solves a specific business problem.

Warzel: Oh, that’s really interesting. I like the idea that Discord is kind of like the TV Guide and each platform is a different channel and people just switch back and forth depending on what’s on. Au: I think this is what Mark Zuckerberg and other would-be Metaverse builders right now are missing. It’s not the platform that matters as much as th... See more

Platform wealth and economic sharing: Today, creators & consumers contribute to a platform to gain social or economic status. But this status is rented (status on platform only, revenue shared directly with platform). In Web3 this status is owned. Not only is social reputation portable, but the relationship with IP created on platform can be owned ... See more