Platforms and Aggregators

Platforms also put together supply and demand, but with a massive difference: they don’t prevent them from getting in touch with each other.

So in reality they aggregate three sides. On Facebook:- Content makers like newspapers (content supply) bring the quality content expecting in exchange clicks to visit their sites and monetize through ads or subscriptions. - Consumers (content demand) go to the site to consume that content. Some of them can also become content supply some of the ti... See more

Great things are usually made by specialists, not by all of us. These specialists can create things that the rest of us want. This means that networks can emerge with two groups: one that supplies something valuable, and another which consumes that service. This is where the most valuable type of Internet company enters the game: aggregators.

The only way to beat them is if a new social network has such a massive advantage in quality of content and interactions that people start straddling both until the original network dies.

This is also why some languages tend to become predominant over others: whenever a network of people is well connected, they need a single protocol to communicate. That’s called a language. The more people interact, the more they need a single language to do so, and the more a main language prevails. This is why English will become the lingua franc... See more

Why was this type of network more valuable than the other ones mentioned above? There are at least three reasons:- There are global network effects to the telephone- The marginal cost of servicing a phone call is zero- In communications, subnetworks form within the overarching network