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

If you want to sell a product online, publish a game, or distribute a new app you built, you must pay a tax to one of several dominant aggregators. “Real estate” on the internet can therefore be much more competitive than it is in the physical world, where you pay a market-based rent, but foot traffic comes for free.

To grow its take rate significantly from here, Shopify would need to deliver a value it currently lacks: demand gen(-eration). I've written about the powerful combo of free software, marketplace services, and demand gen in my "business in a box" post a few weeks ago. Because 50% of e-commerce searches already start on Amazon, the incumbent has a hu... See more