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I don't disagree that relying on a third-party platform for the majority of your income comes with risks (see the Adpocalypse on YouTube), but I think you've ma
by AussieWog93 6y ago
I don't disagree that relying on a third-party platform for the majority of your income comes with risks (see the Adpocalypse on YouTube), but I think you've made a few assumptions about my business that aren't 100% true.
Regardless, owning your own shop doesn't magically solve all of your problems. You still need to bring customers in, be that through PR (which takes time), or advertising (which costs money).
- throwaway13337 6y agoI didn't mean to make an overly broad assumption about your business. I'm sorry if I did. There are indeed ways to combat the platform's influence within it like strong product branding and differentiation backed by a legal monopoly. What I'm really after here is to say that all those tools that the platforms give you come at a very high cost. My point was that platforms are indeed hurting small businesses. We are now forced into a kind of surfdom. That's not a great future.
- AussieWog93 6y agoAll good man, no offense taken. Your point about the platforms having too much power is right, but I don't think it's reached the level of full-on serfdom - at least not in e-commerce. Sure, eBay/Amazon take a 10-15% cut of the sales, and this is arguably excessive, but they make it possible for product designers to sell their products direct to consumers on a large scale. Before they existed, the only way to reach a broad audience was through a hierarchy of retailers/wholesalers that might end up taking 70% of the final sale price. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than it was.