Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.
After a platform takes off because it actually is useful for its users it starts growing, it takes money from investors and/or business users, it starts dancing to their tune, and it's downhill from there for their users and then for their business users too, clawing back all the value for themselves.
Then they die.
Amazon is a good example, like the article continues to point out. For example, it used to have a block on an article's page that showed what else people buying this product, also bought. This was a great way of finding out interesting related products, or even better versions of the stuff that you just found.
Of course that's not a thing any more. You just get emails and ads trying to sell you the same product you just bought. Their search has never worked for me, and I've had an account there for decades. It's just ads.
They have stagnated, act really shitty to their employees and I have been done with them for years, and I hope more people will turn away from buying from/through them.
Anyway.
Apart from me needing to stop posting rambling posts late at night, just go read the article :)
