The Moat
The Platform Is a Middleman That Middlemans the Middlemen.
Above every broker sits a bigger doorway taking a cut of all the brokers.
Airbnb owns no houses. Uber owns no cars. Booking owns no hotels. They are middlemen sitting above an army of smaller middlemen and operators, taking a slice of everything that flows through - the purest, highest form of the position. They built the doorway that the doorway-owners have to use. That is the penthouse of this whole game.
Understand this and your ambition changes. You don't just want to be a middleman in a market; eventually you want to own the place where the middlemen themselves transact. It's the difference between taking a toll on one road and owning the map every road is drawn on. Keep climbing until you can see that level - it's where the real fortunes sit.
The biggest money is the platform every other middleman has to pass through.
This is one of 48 laws from MIDDLEMAN - The 48 Laws of the Money in the Middle. Read it in full to climb the whole building, floor by floor.