isn't the basic question here how much money it takes to build your own and whether you have that expertise and time and appetite for risk in that market, desire to play in that market?
for a lot of people who made money in the iOS garden, for example, it was do that or not play, they weren't even developers before, some of them, and certainly weren't releasing apps. Same for some Facebook games.
Basically, it's like web hosting: if you run your own servers (when you're small), then whatever business you're 'really' in, you're now also in the IT business. Per the article, whatever business you're really in, you're now also trying to make it in the social networking business. Which is hard.
Not everyone wants to do that. For others, who do, the business they enter incidentally turns out to be their big cash cow. (example: large companies that build distribution systems and then monetize them or spin off a division; amazon monetizing what must have originally been its own cloud.)
Basically, it's not so easy to say: for anything you do, roll your own with a division that could be a company in its own right.
Not everyone should or can make a nationwide distribution network, or get a physical hardware device into millions of people's pockets or... (list goes on and on.)
Often it makes sense to what you're good at and can be competitive in, even if this was made possible by a bigger fish letting you play in their pond. You can get your own when you're bigger. (if it makes sense and you feel you'll be successful doing it, even though it's outside your core competency.)
for a lot of people who made money in the iOS garden, for example, it was do that or not play, they weren't even developers before, some of them, and certainly weren't releasing apps. Same for some Facebook games.
Basically, it's like web hosting: if you run your own servers (when you're small), then whatever business you're 'really' in, you're now also in the IT business. Per the article, whatever business you're really in, you're now also trying to make it in the social networking business. Which is hard.
Not everyone wants to do that. For others, who do, the business they enter incidentally turns out to be their big cash cow. (example: large companies that build distribution systems and then monetize them or spin off a division; amazon monetizing what must have originally been its own cloud.)
Basically, it's not so easy to say: for anything you do, roll your own with a division that could be a company in its own right.
Not everyone should or can make a nationwide distribution network, or get a physical hardware device into millions of people's pockets or... (list goes on and on.)
Often it makes sense to what you're good at and can be competitive in, even if this was made possible by a bigger fish letting you play in their pond. You can get your own when you're bigger. (if it makes sense and you feel you'll be successful doing it, even though it's outside your core competency.)