To help understand where our digital lives are going next, I’ll steal a line from “All the President’s Men”: Follow the money.
Why is Spotify going big into podcasts? Because music streaming is a financial death trap and Spotify has to find something that isn’t. Uber’s push into delivering everything is a classic tactic: If one business isn’t profitable, use it as a foundation to sell something else that is. Apple is branching into fitness class subscriptions and (maybe eventually) cars because it’s trying to find a second act after the iPhone.
The companies that shape how we spend our time and money and remodel industries make choices based not only on what’s compelling to us but also on what’s helpful to their bottom lines.
To continue reading this report in The New York Times, go to:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/technology/profits-steer-our-digital-future.html