The Power of Defaults

The best examples from the last two decades are Google and Facebooks’s multi-sided network effects. People prefer searching and connecting with each other on these properties, so advertisers and content creators keep using them. It creates a virtuous cycle, and makes the self-interested move on every player’s part one that reinforces these companie... See more

A subtext to last week’s article, Tech’s Two Philosophies, was the idea that there is a difference between Aggregators and Platforms; this was the key section:It is no accident that Apple and Microsoft, the two “bicycle of the mind” companies, were founded only a year apart, and for decades had broadly similar business models: sure, Microsoft licen... See more