Economic

Sell it once, subscribe, advertising, commission.

The advertiser is the customer, so the product is built to hold attention rather than to be useful.

A business that provides the place where two other groups trade, takes a share of each transaction and sets the terms.

Each side is there because the other is, so a competitor has to attract both at once.

Automation takes tasks out of a job rather than removing the job — the job that remains is a different job.

Predictability, volume, how cheap an error is, and whether the data already exists.

Skilled tasks are often predictable and richly recorded — reading a scan is easier to automate than clearing a table.

Entry-level tasks were how people learned the job, so removing them removes the route into the field.

Digital things copy; money must move. Spending has to remove it from the sender.

One organisation holds the record, or thousands of copies of one shared record are held.

Control by an organisation you can appeal to, against control by a rule that cannot be appealed to.

It used phones people already owned, so it needed no new branches or infrastructure.

Digital coordination became nearly free, payment became immediate, and demand became visible everywhere at once.

At design and at the sale — the two steps involving the fewest people.

At mining, assembly and disposal — the steps furthest from where the profit is recorded.

The government with the power to act has no harm in front of it, and the one with the harm has no hold over the company.