The EU Commission’s proposal to establish a ‘data trust marketplace’ for Europe’s 500 million citizens stands at odds with the EU’s staunch data privacy regulations. This shift signals the European urgency to compete with the tech economies of China and the US.
Current free and ubiquitous applications (search, social media etc.) function on convenience and prioritise a seamless experience. However, blockchain applications rely on the users’ motivation to forgo seamless convenience in the form of microtransactions for greater control and data ownership.
AliExpress Connect as an influencer marketplace standardizes discovery and payment. It creates a new level of transparency for the pricing of “influence” and levels the playing field for influencers across the spectrum as they compete for brand representation.
Mini-apps are a potential evolution towards a ‘marketplace for experiences’ within social media ecosystems. Where increasing experiences correlates to increased time spent on platforms by users, shoring up loyalty and retention against competitors for discretionary time.
The consumer in the home and the smart speaker represent a lateral value extension beyond the mobile and desktop. Big Tech is in a race to dominate the home, as they become the gatekeepers to all the value that funnels through the voice portal as users make the transition to the new interface.
PayPal is leaning on two decades of customer trust to bring crypto transactions to its 325 million lay user base. Supported by crypto readiness for mass exposure, PayPal chases revenue growth as Square reports $306 million of BTC revenue in Q1 2020 alone.
Quibi in its endeavour to compete with Youtube prioritised short-form content with high-quality production, misjudging today’s consumption habits. Youtube was successful because it went beyond ‘short-form’, to also introduce the quantity of entertainment required to quench boredom at scale.
If the human experience is derivative of our awareness of choices and a scarcity of time, then recommender engines will play a functional role in the depth and breadth of these experiences - representing far more than just consumer convenience.
Ambient computing’s vision for a fluid, tech-enabled human experience requires seamless integration between software, hardware and humans. Big tech’s ability to deliver is diverted by its incentive structure, one better aligned with ‘walled ambience’.
The virality of user propagated news on Facebook is stronger for the traits it carries as it passes through social channels, even the most tenuous social link is stronger than the links that currently exist between the public and media sources.
