Internet Economics
How the internet makes money.
We study the businesses, products, people, and economic models creating value online.
The question
How does this business make money, and why does the model work?
Most coverage stops at the outcome. Internet Economics asks for the cause: the payer, the mechanism, the cost of the next customer, and the condition that would break it.
01
Who pays?
The user and the payer are often different people.
02
Why do they pay?
Price has to connect to a cost the customer already feels.
03
How does money enter?
Subscription, take rate, usage, ads, services, or some mix.
04
What does another customer cost?
Software leverage is real only where marginal cost stays low.
05
Where is the constraint?
Distribution, supply, trust, regulation, or the free alternative.
06
What would break it?
A model without failure conditions is a brochure.
Method
How we analyze a business
01
Value creation
What problem is expensive enough to pay to remove?
02
Monetization
Who hands over money, and through which mechanism?
03
Distribution
How does the customer arrive, and what does that cost?
04
Economics
What remains after the cost of serving the next customer?
05
Constraint
What stops the model from scaling without friction?
06
Value capture
Why does this business keep any of the value it creates?
Analysis
Latest teardowns
How a specific internet business makes money, and why the model works.
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New economic teardowns of internet businesses.