on infra & platforms tldr: infra either become platforms or face commodification long term new technology (like zk, fast consensus etc.) often gets built out as infrastructure, which are basically products that unlock novel and useful capabilities for applications and use cases examples: zk enabled rollups and privacy-preserving payments, fast consensus enabled faster decentralized chains. at some point, every infrastructure company faces a choice between two business models: product/process businesses vs. platform businesses. note: it's a spectrum instead of a strict binary divide. example of product/process businesses: iphones, software (like b2b saas), rollup-as-a-service example of platform businesses: app store, ride hailing/uber, social networks, chains product/process businesses often has Θ(n) value, where n is the number of customers or product that gets sold. platform businesses often has Θ(n^2) value, where n is the number of participants, crucially due to the network effects of the platform. this is how the math works: the marginal value of the network to each new entrants is linear in the size of the network. hence summing over all the participants we get n^2 asymptotically one key long-term difference between the two is this: - products tend to commoditized over time - platforms tend to have winner-take-all effects a good case study here are phones and app stores: smart phones are mostly commoditized now, but the app stores (application platforms with distribution) create and accrual proportionally more value while digital infrastructure companies can build product businesses, it is much more beneficial to find ways to unlock network effects and build platforms how does this apply to blockchains? chains are (secure) application platform, they not only provide backend infrastructure, but also network effects in form of liquidity, users, and distribution if you are a technical founder in crypto, think about how your tech unlocks better platforms infra either become platforms or get commoditized