Lens family
324 analyses · Business Model
Shopify's Real Moat Isn't Its Software. It's the People Who Build Software for It.
Shopify
Three Countries Tried to Ban EA's Loot Boxes. The Revenue Went Up.
Electronic Arts
Fortnite Gives the Game Away. The Money Is in the Currency You Buy to Spend Inside It.
Epic Games
Epic Gave Away $2.2 Billion in Games to Build a Store Where Nobody Buys
Epic Games
Roblox Sells Robux at a Penny and Buys Them Back at a Third of a Cent
Roblox
Tencent Built the Perfect Flywheel. Then Beijing Took the Crank.
Tencent
Sony Sold PlayStation Games to PC Players. Then It Saw Who Wasn't Coming Home.
Sony
Sony Doesn't Use Sensors to Fund Everything Else. It Uses Them to Buy Leverage.
Sony
Alibaba Built the Perfect Flywheel. Then It Tore Out the Best Part.
Alibaba
AWS Doesn't Bail Out Amazon's Retail. It Buys Something More Valuable: Patience.
Amazon
Amazon Doesn't Sell You a Kindle. It Sells You a Toll Booth You Carry Around.
Amazon
Amazon Sold Alexa at a Loss to Win a Sale That Never Came
Amazon
CrowdStrike's Whole Business Is One Number: How Many Modules Did You Turn On?
CrowdStrike
TikTok's Flywheel Doesn't Run on Creators. It Runs on the Algorithm.
ByteDance / TikTok
Meta Doesn't Sell Your Data. It Sells the Three Seconds You Spend Looking at the Wrong Thing.
Meta
WhatsApp Isn't Waiting to Make Money. It Already Does — Just Not From You.
Meta
Snap's Monetization Problem Was Never the Young Users. It Was Two Other Things.
Snap
Twitter Sold Its Only Free Trust Signal for $7.99 a Month. The Trust Didn't Come Back.
X (Twitter)
Adobe Sold You a Subscription. The Real Product Was the Difficulty of Leaving.
Adobe
Amazon Didn't Sell the First Kindle at a Loss. The Real Razor Was Free.
Amazon Kindle
Spotify Was Supposed to Lose to Apple. Then It Stopped Renting Apple's Road.
Spotify vs Apple Music
Three Fast-Fashion Empires, Three Different Bets on the Same 24 Months
Zara vs H&M vs Shein
Greedflation Was Real, Small, and Over Before You Heard the Word.
Greedflation vs Pricing Power
Reshoring Rewired the Boardroom Faster Than It Rewired a Single Factory Floor
Reshoring & Friendshoring
Stores Didn't Become Ad Networks. They Always Were One — Amazon Just Showed the Bill.
Retail Media
The Loophole That Built Shein Wasn't a Loophole. America Drilled the Hole on Purpose.
The De Minimis Loophole
The Password Crackdown Wasn't a Bet. It Was a Bill Coming Due.
The Password Crackdown
Subscription Fatigue Is Real. It's Just Not Where Everyone Says It Is.
The Subscription Economy
Amazon Didn't Plan to Own the Stack. It Got Cornered Into It, One Bottleneck at a Time.
Amazon
Tesla's Cheaper-Battery Flywheel Is a Myth. The Real One Runs on Miles.
Tesla