Metaaggregation is a new and novel extension to @benthompson's aggregation theory. It's also helps explain incoming threats to incumbent tech companies as they seek to keep dominant control in a web3 world. Ben proposed that internet companies solve hard problems in isolation and bind that benefit into wholly owned, repeatable platforms and products. Aggregation theory held true as Web 2.0 companies hit the ceiling of oligopoly. Now, there is a natural progression of this theory for creators.

Metaaggregation is a dominant, winning strategy in the content space, and it is also one that can bear many non-perfect competitors despite an identical flow of business. These competitors are also able to consolidate power by dictating prices or some economic rent from both their suppliers and users, thereby monopolizing the vertical.

Similar to the diminishing marginal cost of traditional firms distributing software, content companies also experience lower relative costs of acquiring new users due to network effects and the moat of content. Their sole product sold is the consumption, organization, and delivery of data, i.e. user and audience metrics. Twitter, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, et al. have nearly zero cost of acquiring user data as it occurs on their own platforms. Other content companies have chosen to buy their data products: Spotify has a variable cost business with the labels, Netflix a fixed one with production companies.

But a funny thing happens in web3: data becomes expensive to generate and publish. It is expensive to give away data, because it expensive to interact with a decentralized world. The reason is because data is organized around permanent identity addresses. Memory is impermanent and expensive, and data isn't repeated unless you pay to repeat it.

Have you ever noticed TikTok videos on Insta Reels? It's because data is watermarked and repeated, usually without original credit or license. Data is free (by design of the business) to pollute identical platforms. Meta-aggregation explains how creators will finally be able to drastically increase the cost of aggregators: by tying data and metadata to the decentralized identity of creators, creators will have direct pricing power over their work by forcing data auctions over their licensed work.

A published work, tied to its creator, can be bid on by many identical perfect competitors. YouTube, TikTok, Insta, Snap all will compete to license the same web3 addressable shortform content to serve to its captured user base.

In the future, creators will not want to solve an aggregator's business in delivery. Why should they? That's a Web 2.0 problem, and big tech has already commoditized that infrastructure. Instead, they will focus purely on creation and licensing their content.

Meta-aggregating aggregators by consolidating power of distribution to the discretion of creators forces supply price competition. It promotes a clear strategy to the long tail of creators that cannot earn a living off their work as they had no pricing power before.

Metaaggregation is a new and novel extension to @benthompson's aggregation theory. It's also helps explain incoming threats to incumbent tech companies as they seek to keep dominant control in a web3 world. Ben proposed that internet companies solve hard problems in isolation and bind that benefit into wholly owned, repeatable platforms and products. Aggregation theory held true as Web 2.0 companies hit the ceiling of oligopoly. Now, there is a natural progression of this theory for creators.

Metaaggregation is a dominant, winning strategy in the content space, and it is also one that can bear many non-perfect competitors despite an identical flow of business. These competitors are also able to consolidate power by dictating prices or some economic rent from both their suppliers and users, thereby monopolizing the vertical.

Similar to the diminishing marginal cost of traditional firms distributing software, content companies also experience lower relative costs of acquiring new users due to network effects and the moat of content. Their sole product sold is the consumption, organization, and delivery of data, i.e. user and audience metrics. Twitter, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, et al. have nearly zero cost of acquiring user data as it occurs on their own platforms. Other content companies have chosen to buy their data products: Spotify has a variable cost business with the labels, Netflix a fixed one with production companies.

But a funny thing happens in web3: data becomes expensive to generate and publish. It is expensive to give away data, because it expensive to interact with a decentralized world. The reason is because data is organized around permanent identity addresses. Memory is impermanent and expensive, and data isn't repeated unless you pay to repeat it.

Have you ever noticed TikTok videos on Insta Reels? It's because data is watermarked and repeated, usually without original credit or license. Data is free (by design of the business) to pollute identical platforms. Meta-aggregation explains how creators will finally be able to drastically increase the cost of aggregators: by tying data and metadata to the decentralized identity of creators, creators will have direct pricing power over their work by forcing data auctions over their licensed work.

A published work, tied to its creator, can be bid on by many identical perfect competitors. YouTube, TikTok, Insta, Snap all will compete to license the same web3 addressable shortform content to serve to its captured user base.

In the future, creators will not want to solve an aggregator's business in delivery. Why should they? That's a Web 2.0 problem, and big tech has already commoditized that infrastructure. Instead, they will focus purely on creation and licensing their content.

Meta-aggregating aggregators by consolidating power of distribution to the discretion of creators forces supply price competition. It promotes a clear strategy to the long tail of creators that cannot earn a living off their work as they had no pricing power before.