The Digital World: Symbiosis or Parasite?
Recently, I stumbled upon Mark Schaefer’s thought-provoking piece on Medium, “The Parasite Economy: An Upside for Creators.” The article caught my attention as it offered a counterpoint to Ted Gioia’s critique of modern digital platforms in his piece “Are We Now Living in a Parasite Culture?”
Gioia’s argument is compelling in its simplicity. He observes that today’s largest corporations are essentially “parasite businesses” that create very little themselves while profiting immensely from others’ creativity. Compare this to the industrial giants of the past — Ford manufactured cars, Boeing built planes, and GE produced appliances. These companies transformed raw materials into tangible products.
But is this comparison fair? A mall owner shared an interesting perspective with me. “We don’t create anything in our mall,” they said, “but we provide the infrastructure that enables businesses to thrive. We don’t care how much our tenants make, but they pay the set price for the space and services we provide.”
This analogy perfectly illustrates the platform business model. Just as a mall provides physical infrastructure, security, and foot traffic, digital platforms offer technical infrastructure, user traffic, and discovery mechanisms. The key difference lies in scale and marginal costs — while a mall has physical limitations…
