Companies desire a successful platform strategy because: 1. Being a platform means you can grow to face reduced competition and earn lots of income while those

Companies desire a successful platform strategy because: 1. Being a platform means you can grow to face reduced competition and earn lots of income while those on the platform perpetuate your relevancy (and your income stream). For example the network effects of iPhone purchasers and app developers makes it very hard for new mobile ecosystems to challenge Apple (outside of Android anyways). 2. If a company doesn’t make a platform play, it may be displaced by someone who does. As an example, niche book retailers now mostly compete against each other as third party sellers on Amazon’s platform, where the shoppers are. 3. A platform is a way to diversify and make yourself less vulnerable to a single area or some external dependency. As an example, Walmart and many others have started offering “buy now pay later” plans that enable customers to buy on credit without relying on credit card companies and credit scoring limitations. It is a problem, however. Large platforms inherently face reduced competition, disrupting healthy market dynamics. They gain influence and can participate in regulatory capture. They become powerful like pseudo governments, but yet aren’t treated like a public agency/service/utility. We need new legislative thinking and bold politics to rein in these massive institutions.