Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

The hardest problem in B2C is distribution. The hardest problem in B2B is sales. AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution.

I agree with this, but I think it's interesting. Wasn't the Internet supposed to democratize distribution? All someone has to do is go to your website. And anybody can set up a website.

So it seems like the Internet just shifted the goal posts for everyone? The winners are still as dominant as ever.

But I guess it is true that you can have a break-out hit like Instagram or WhatsApp, and that wasn't possible pre-Internet. The time scales are compressed.

But perversely, maybe because distribution is easier and software flows more freely, you have to be even better? You can't rely on "local inefficiencies"? You have to be globally the best.

> AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution.

Well, first of all, this isn't true. Google and FB aren't so profitable because of a distribution monopoly. They're profitable due to network effects.

Yes I agree the original post oversimplified it.

network effects: a phenomenon whereby a product or service gains additional value as more people use it.

How does google search get better from more people using it?

To be brief, more data (generated by clicks and queries) leads to better ranking. Better ranking attracts more users. Starting a search engine from scratch without any user data is a big disadvantage.

Basically, you're benefitting from other people who are searching for the same thing as you on the same search engine. (I'm sure that's not the only network effect, but it's one of them.)

I think it's that the goal posts have shifted, i.e. distribution used to be the bottleneck for alot of people but now that it's easy (for internet businesses) there's a new bottleneck.

There's so much stuff on the internet that it's a problem of discovery, which is why Google became so dominant.

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