Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement · Gwern.net
A classic pattern in technology economics, identified by Joel Spolsky, is layers of the stack attempting to become monopolies while turning other layers into perfectly-competitive markets which are commoditized, in order to harvest most of the consumer surplus; discussion and examples.
--- title: "Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement" description: A classic pattern in technology economics, identified by Joel Spolsky, is layers of the stack attempting to become monopolies while turning other layers into perfectly-competitive markets which are commoditized, in order to harvest most of the consumer surplus; discussion and examples. thumbnail: /doc/ai/nn/diffusion/imagen/2026-06-18-gwern-claude48opus-nanobananapro-illustration-commoditizeyourcomplement-kingbarcode.jpg thumbnail-text: "Commoditize your complement: one profitable chokepoint, many interchangeable complements.
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