platforms
6 free lessons tagged platforms across Business. Each one is a short sequence of focused steps with narration and a five-question quiz at the end — take them in any order, no signup required.
Why some markets tip and others never do
Network effects are supposed to produce monopolies, yet plenty of networked markets have several healthy competitors. Learn what makes a market tip toward one winner, the four forces that stop tipping and keep markets competitive, why multi-homing is the quiet enemy of every platform, and how to tell a genuine winner-take-all market from one that merely looks like one.
The chicken-and-egg problem
A marketplace with no buyers has no sellers, and with no sellers has no buyers. Learn how platforms solve the cold-start problem that kills most of them, why the answer is usually to subsidize one side heavily, how pricing in a two-sided market breaks the normal rules of business, and the concrete tactics, from faking one side to going town by town, that actually ignite a network.
The engine that makes winners unbeatable
Some products get better the more people use them, and that single property explains why a handful of platforms dominate the digital world. Learn what a network effect actually is, the difference between direct, indirect, and data effects, why Metcalfe's law overstates the case, and how the same feedback loop that creates a monopoly also makes it fragile at the start.
Why China's internet evolved separately
Two internets, same technology, different shapes. Learn the operating requirements that platforms in China work under, from licensing and real-name accounts to filing recommendation algorithms with the regulator, how compliance became a core product function rather than a legal afterthought, why micro-dramas became a format with no Western equivalent, and what all the differences add up to.
Who's who in Chinese social media
Douyin is not TikTok, Xiaohongshu is not Instagram, and Weibo is not quite Twitter. A guided map of the platforms 1.1 billion people actually use: what job each one does, which conglomerate stands behind it, why the ecosystems were walled off from each other, and which Western analogy helps you versus which one quietly misleads you.
Why one app does everything in China
Western phones hold a dozen apps for a dozen jobs. In China, one app is the messaging, the payments, the taxi, the bill, the government form, and the shop. Learn how the super-app model works, why mini-programs made bundling possible, why a market that skipped credit cards produced a different shape of internet, and what the design actually trades away.