stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
The Apple v. Epic Decision
13 sep. 2021 - Understanding Apple’s victory in Apple v. Epic, and the limitations of the injunction on anti-steering provisions.
 · antitrust · apple · epic · gaming · intellectual-property

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Apple’s Mistake
9 aug. 2021 - While it’s possible to understand Apple’s motivations behind its decision to enable on-device scanning, the company had a better way to satisfy its societal obligations while preserving…
 · apple · child-abuse · facebook · neuralhash · on-device-scanning · privacy · trust

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Instagram’s Evolution
7 jul. 2021 - Instagram’s shift away from being a photo-sharing app is very much inline with the service’s continuous evolution.
 · advertising · facebook · gdpr · instagram · interoperability · tiktok · video

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Pandemic Progress
21 jun. 2021 - Marc Andreessen has changed his tone over the past year; there is a cynical interpretation, but I think the shift is justified.
 · apple · covid-19 · gdpr · journalism · privacy · remote-work · taiwan · united-states · venture-capitalism

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Cloudflare on the Edge
11 may. 2021 - Cloudflare is uniquely positioned to become a major player in an Internet 3.0 world, where politics matter more than economics.
 · amazon · cdn · centralization · cloudflare · compliance · ddos · decentralization · google · innovators-dilemma · internet-3-0 · jurisdiction · microsoft · sovereignty

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Spotify’s Surprise
28 apr. 2021 - Spotify’s new subscription podcast offerings embrace the open ecosystem of podcasts in multiple ways.
 · advertising · apple · podcasting · rss · spotify

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Non-Fungible Taylor Swift
12 apr. 2021 - Taylor Swift, like Dave Chappelle, is leveraging the power of the Internet to take control of their art.
 · art · bitcoin · blockchain · music · nft-s

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Sovereign Writers and Substack
22 mar. 2021 - Substack is at the center of media controversy, most of which misses the point that sovereign writers — not Substack — are in control.
 · substack · writing

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
The Web’s Missing Interoperability
2 mar. 2021 - Truly unlocking competition in tech means increasing interoperability; an absolutist approach to privacy is doing the exact opposite.
 · interoperability · not-read

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Clubhouse’s Inevitability
15 feb. 2021 - Clubhouse will do for audio what Twitter, Instagram Stories, and TikTok did for text, images, and video.
 · china · clubhouse · facebook · podcasting · spotify · taiwan

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
The Relentless Jeff Bezos
3 feb. 2021 - Jeff Bezos is retiring, and will go down as one of the great CEO’s in tech history, in part because of how he transformed Amazon into a tech company in every respect.
 · amazon · exponential-growth

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Publishing is Back to the Future
27 jan. 2021 - Journalism cannot afford to be divorced from business realities; that applies to Australia, the New York Times, and even Andreessen Horowitz.
 · advertising · aggregation-theory · australia · facebook · google · journalism · new-york-times

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Internet 3.0 and the Beginning of (Tech) History
12 jan. 2021 - The actions taken by Big Tech have a resonance that goes beyond the context of domestic U.S. politics. Even if they were right, they will still push the world to Internet 3.0.
 · internet-history

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Trump and Twitter
7 jan. 2021 - Twitter and Facebook face the gravest Trump crisis yet, and this time, I think it is time to act.
 · content-moderation · democracy · deplatforming · donald-trump · facebook · liberalism · twitter · united-states

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
New Defaults
5 jan. 2021 - The pandemic and vaccine rollout have highlighted where the West has lost its way; we need new defaults about information, change, and speed.
 · amazon · apple · authoritarianism · censorship · china · covid-19 · defaults · design · facebook · freedom · freedom-of-speech · opportunity-costs · saving · vaccination

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Social Networking 2.0
15 dec. 2020 - Facebook and Twitter represent the v1 of Social Networking; it’s a bad copy of the analog world, whereas v2 is something unique to digital, and a lot more promising.
 · attention · facebook · identity · interest-graph · social-networking · tiktok · twitter

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
In Defense of Digital Advertising
8 dec. 2020 - Apple’s position on privacy seems unimpeachable, but it ignores trade-offs, and risks a bad outcome for the Internet as a whole.
 · advertising · not-read

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Stripe: Platform of Platforms
3 dec. 2020 - Stripe’s announcement of Treasury — banking-as-a-service — manifests the breadth of the company’s ambition.
 · banking · platforms · shopify · stripe

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Five Lessons From Dave Chappelle
30 nov. 2020 - Dave Chappelle has a new special about his old show that includes fundamental lessons about how the Internet has changed the content business.
 · aggregation-theory · content · not-read

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
The Idea Adoption Curve
23 nov. 2020 - Mapping the technology adoption curve to ideas gives insights as to which business models work on which parts of the addressable market.
 · adoption-curve · innovation · journalism

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Is the Internet Different?
3 nov. 2020 - A response to a critique of Aggregation Theory, and a defense of debate on an Internet devoid of gatekeepers.
 · aggregation-theory · antitrust

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
United States v. Google
21 oct. 2020 - The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google is appropriately narrow, and if it fails it gives a template for Congressional action.
 · aggregation-theory · antitrust · apple · eu · google · monopolies · search-engines · seo · united-states

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Twitter, Responsibility, and Accountability
19 oct. 2020 - Twitter went too far last week for reasons that go back to 2016 and the unfair blaming of tech for media’s mistakes.
 · content-moderation · journalism · misinformation · social-media · twitter · us-2020-elections · voting

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Disney and Integrators Versus Aggregators
13 oct. 2020 - Disney’s reorganization reinforces their integrated strategy; there is a lot to learn for anyone competing with Aggregators.
 · aggregation-theory · disney · integration-theory · new-york-times

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Nvidia’s Integration Dreams
15 sep. 2020 - Nvidia’s acquisition of ARM only makes sense from a financial perspective, unless you buy Jensen Huang’s datacenter dreams.
 · arm · nvidia

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Rethinking the App Store
25 aug. 2020 - Assume that Apple is going to win versus Epic: what is a reasonable approach to the App Store that will gain more developer support?
 · apple · epic · freedom · innovation · monopolies

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Apple, Epic, and the App Store
17 aug. 2020 - The App Store is not one thing: it is installation, payments, and customer management; the further Apple gets from iOS, the worse its actions are for users and developers.
 · antitrust · apple · epic

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
Antitrust Politics
4 aug. 2020 - Analyzing the politics of the antitrust hearing featuring the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
 · amazon · antitrust · apple · censorship · facebook · google · monopolies · united-states

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
India, Jio, and the Four Internets
21 jul. 2020 - There are four Internets: China versus the U.S., and the E.U. and India. India’s potential new model rests on Jio.
 · china · eu · facebook · growth · india · jio · monopolies · net-neutrality · regulation · tiktok · united-states

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
The TikTok War
14 jul. 2020 - How TikTok exposed Facebook’s blindspot, thanks to its Chinese roots, and why those Chinese roots make TikTok a genuine concern.
 · bytedance · censorship · china · liberalism · marxism · propaganda · tiktok · united-states

stratechery.com > Ben Thompson
The Slack Social Network
7 jul. 2020 - Slack lost to Microsoft head-to-head, but has smartly shifted to a horizontal strategy that the vertically-oriented Microsoft can’t match.
 · microsoft · slack