[dsaavy]

I think that’s a severe underestimation of the impact of a popular and easy place of congregation. The center of power being the platform is how things work in the digital realm and the in-person realm.

As a random example, if someone is shopping for a steak, they normally would go to a market, grocery store, or butcher shop in a popular plaza near their home. If you’re in America, most likely that steak is sourced from a farm owned by a large corporation. You could go to local butcher who sources their meat from local small farms and add 30 minutes to your shopping, but it doesn’t have potatoes and green beans you'd like on the side of that steak dinner. Some people will absolutely make that trip, but not nearly as much as if that butcher got a shop in the popular plaza near everything else, owned by a commercial real estate company.

While the physical shopping example obviously has more friction than the digital example, the value is still high to provide a centrally located platform for consumers, creators and businesses to congregate. The power is rightfully focused on those that provide that platform.

[TeMPOraL]

I wouldn't say the power is "rightfully" focused on those that run the platform, just that the shape of the market makes it so. A platform - whether a streaming site or a commercial plaza - is worthless without a plethora of content/goods providers on board. But there's much more providers than platforms, so platforms get to set the rules.