In the last 18 months, I’ve thought more and more about the Gang of Four and The Age of the Platform. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are clearly dominant but I’m starting to see cracks in Facebook. The other companies were started as businesses and we’re used to paying them. Not so with Zuck’s baby. Turning users into customers isn’t easy, nor is increasing the number of ads they see. This erodes the user experience, and there’s no simple solution for this.

For more on this, check out this Bloomberg West video.

Simon Says

Monetizing your users irritates them. Users and customers should never be confused as one and the same. Facebook should survive, but I for one think that there are legitimate questions about its future growth.