Benedict Evans

And, you know, there's always the example and the counterexample.

So with any new kind of any new platform shift and a platform, the term platform shift itself is, you know, it's a useful term, but you have to be careful not to be trapped by your terminology and get into this sort of arguments about, well, is it a platform shift or is not a platform shift?

And how do you define a platform?

Shut up.

The thing is, with any of these sort of fundamental technology changes, the incumbents always try and make it a feature and they try and absorb it.

And the same thing outside of technology, existing companies try and absorb it and they use it to automate the stuff they're already doing.

And then over time, you get new stuff.

You unbundle both the incumbents in tech and you unbundle existing companies because of something that's possible because of this new technology.

So you can always kind of jump into the new thing.

And sometimes the new thing kind of really is just a feature.

And sometimes it's no, it's a fundamental change in how everything works.

And sometimes that sort of contingent, you know, there's this whole sort of parlor game, like drinking game that historians play about kind of historical inevitability.

You know, well, what would have happened if that battle had been lost or if that politician had been assassinated or not assassinated?

And it depends.

Sometimes the answer is, well, no, nothing.

Then everything would have been completely different.

And sometimes the answer is, well, no, then, you know, what if Napoleon had won at Waterloo?

Well, then he'd have lost another battle six months later.

Like nothing would have changed.

The whole environment had changed.