Ben Thompson von Stratechery hat sich in seinem Text „Is Buzzfeed a Tech Company?“ mit der Kostenstruktur von Medienfirmen beschäftigt:
1. Die Unterschiede zwischen Medienunternehmen und Technologie-Unternehmen vor dem Internet:
- Created content had a very short shelf life, which leaves a very small amount of time to recoup the fixed costs that went into its creation
- Media’s marginal costs (paper, ink, delivery) were higher than the marginal costs for software, at least in relative terms
- Media was generally limited in its geographic availability
2. Diese Unterschiede haben sich durch das Internet vergrößert:
- Packaging is no longer necessary, reducing the marginal cost of software to zero
- Multiple new business models have emerged for software, such as attracting massive user bases for free which can then be monetized through advertising or premium services1
- Media, meanwhile, has lost its local monopoly, and advertisers have fled for platforms that have more scale – there’s that word again – and better targeting
3. Dadurch verändern sich die Möglichkeiten der Skalierung von Medienfirmen:
- Like software, media has zero marginal cost
- Multiple new business models have emerged for media, such as attracting massive user bases for free which can then be monetized through advertising or premium services
- The addressable market for media is the connected population of the world, and content is itself self-selecting when it comes to effective targeting