Lenny Rachitsky’s research shows that the vast majority of unicorn marketplaces focused on tackling supply before demand. If you have an exclusive lock over supply, that can be used as a unique and compounding moat.
But just as there are reasons why these design patterns won out, we shouldn't let survivor bias blind us to their inherent tradeoffs. The next wave of social startups should learn from the weaknesses of some of these choices of our current social incumbents