Re:Behind the curtain: what it feels like to work in AI righ...
by api on Thursday April 06, 2023 @11:30PM
(#35477709)
> the friction of switching providers
Without this the gravity is much less powerful. Seems like where to focus if you want to empower people against the winner take all monopoly effect.
Areas where switching costs are low are areas where you have standard APIs and where your data resides locally, is easy to move, or are not data intensive at all.
- Customers were only willing to walk so far to go to a bakery
- A store could only stock so many varieties on it's shelves
Now, the cost of distributing goods across the globe, and the incremental cost of creating new goods has shrunk to virtually zero for digital goods, combined with people's general hesitance to the friction of switching providers, creates a the natural "winner take all" effect
The places where you'll see this NOT happening are areas where those costs are still significant for some reason.
Examples:
- Different ride sharing services are popular in different countries, many of them local ones, since foreign companies had a harder time getting distribution started.
- Legal regulations also have been hindering the spread of payment companies across country-level borders