Social media companies love that you don't have a website

With the rise of these services, it’s becoming increasingly more important to own the default channel that the users go to for leisure, for distraction, for whatever it is, because in the, you know, near-infinite nature of the internet, you can push whatever you want through that channel to reach that audience.

The appeal, as Washington hinted at, is control. After a decade of being at the mercy of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat—which own the data, the algorithm, and ultimately that direct line of communication to the audience—stars finally aren’t willing to suffer having these apps restrict access to their fans. “We’re seeing pages get as lit... See more

Social Networks - MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and LinkedIn lead the charge to map out people’s relationships on the Internet. They used the best technology that they had access to at the time: a Delaware Corporation and racks of privately owned servers. This concentrated enormous amounts of power and capital in the hands of a few Silicon Valley C... See more