A few weeks ago I mused over the question of whether there would ever be an Uber or AirBnB for the electricity grid. This question is a platform question -- both Uber and AirBnB have business models in which they bring together two parties for mutual benefit, and the platform provider's revenue stream can come from charging one or both parties for facilitating the transaction (although there are other means too). I said that a "P2P platform very explicitly reduces transaction costs that prevent exchanges between buyer and seller", and that's really the core of a platform business model. Platform providers exist to make exchanges feasible that were not before, to make them easier, and ultimately to make them either cheaper or more valuable (or some combination of the two).
Platform Economics and "Unscaling" the…
A few weeks ago I mused over the question of whether there would ever be an Uber or AirBnB for the electricity grid. This question is a platform question -- both Uber and AirBnB have business models in which they bring together two parties for mutual benefit, and the platform provider's revenue stream can come from charging one or both parties for facilitating the transaction (although there are other means too). I said that a "P2P platform very explicitly reduces transaction costs that prevent exchanges between buyer and seller", and that's really the core of a platform business model. Platform providers exist to make exchanges feasible that were not before, to make them easier, and ultimately to make them either cheaper or more valuable (or some combination of the two).