Re:YouTube faces creator backlash
by chipotle_coyote on Monday July 29, 2019 @12:49PM
(#20556603)
> The question I find interesting is: is this assumption correct? Is service scale the dominant factor in market share, or could you win a significant piece of the pie with a "Smaller YouTube by Humans"?
At least so far, the answer to your second question has been "no," at least if you define "significant" as "that which attracts significant VC investment." (I'm not suggesting that's the best metric, but it's what an awful lot of tech companies use in practice.) This is because the answer to your first question is demonstrably yes: when it comes to services that heavily rely on network effects, service scale is the dominant factor in market share.
It's possible that you could carve out a sustainable niche if you really leaned into the "by humans" part, but it'd still be a niche. I don't think that's necessarily a reason to avoid it.
At least so far, the answer to your second question has been "no," at least if you define "significant" as "that which attracts significant VC investment." (I'm not suggesting that's the best metric, but it's what an awful lot of tech companies use in practice.) This is because the answer to your first question is demonstrably yes: when it comes to services that heavily rely on network effects, service scale is the dominant factor in market share.
It's possible that you could carve out a sustainable niche if you really leaned into the "by humans" part, but it'd still be a niche. I don't think that's necessarily a reason to avoid it.