Platform

Two-sided travel marketplace: guest fees, host policies, and algorithmic ranking shift surplus toward the platform as inventory professionalizes.

Dominant marketplace: Prime lock-in, ad load in search results, and third-party seller fees show clear tilt toward extraction.

The only way to install apps on most iPhones: a safe, curated store that also takes up to 30% and fought court orders to keep it that way.

Cloud primitives at scale: egress fees, service sprawl, and enterprise discounts make migration costly once you’re deep.

Open-protocol microblogging with chronological and custom feeds, no ads, and portable accounts—though $100M+ of venture money will eventually want a return.

OTA giant: aggressive merchandising, Genius loyalty nudges, and partner commissions typify scaled travel extraction.

Differentiated dating brand with the same premium tiers, spotlight features, and engagement optimization as peers.

Block’s consumer wallet: simple P2P on top, but cross-sell into Bitcoin, stocks, and borrowing plus repeated fraud-handling penalties show users carrying the risk.

Strong real-time product for communities, but your social graph and server history are deeply embedded—switching means rebuilding social capital elsewhere.

Launched cheap with a deep back catalog; now on a yearly cycle of price rises, ad tiers, paid sharing, and bundle upsells.

Mature marketplace leaning on promoted listings, managed payments, and seller standards that favour scale over hobbyists.

PC storefront and launcher competing on cuts and exclusives—better for devs in spots, still a platform tax and account wall for players.

Craft marketplace with rising fees, offsite ads, and pressure on sellers to absorb marketing and transaction costs.

Self-serve events and ticketing—easy for organizers until fees, feature tiers, and payout rules become the product.

The canonical enshittification case: a feed that once showed your friends now serves ads, recommended posts, and AI content to an ageing, shrinking audience.

Wholesale marketplace connecting independent brands with independent retailers; net-60 payment terms and free returns lower the barrier for small shops, though take rates remain substantial.

Dating app for open-minded adults; subscription-only with no ads, no dopamine-engineered swipe loops, and identity features built around consent rather than engagement maximisation.

Developer hosting platform built on open container standards with transparent usage-based pricing; VC-backed but designed to avoid the proprietary lock-in that defines AWS and Vercel's moats.

Default forge for open source: Copilot, Actions minutes, and enterprise tiers monetize workflow lock-in.

Open-core DevOps platform: self-host option preserves some exit, SaaS still pushes seat-based upsell.

Android's default store: more open than Apple's, but forced to cut fees only by court order, and tightening control over sideloaded apps.

Niche network with Xtra/Unlimited paywalls, ad load, and privacy history that undermines user trust.

Designed-to-be-deleted marketing meets roses, boosts, and subscription gates—dating app economics in a nicer skin.

Outdoor accommodation marketplace for camping, glamping, and farm stays; host-aligned fee structure and a niche that resists the race-to-the-bottom commoditisation of hotel OTAs.

Expedia-owned OTA: rewards stamps and merchandising follow the same commission-and-upsell playbook as sister brands.

Apple ID–tied mail: works well inside the garden; storage tiers and device bundle pressure nudge paid iCloud+.

Canonical film/TV metadata within Amazon—indispensable lookups with ads, Prime nudges, and data leverage across commerce and streaming.

Photo sharing turned short-video storefront: Reels, ads, and shopping crowd out the people you follow, while Meta's AI and ad systems mine every interaction.

Indie game marketplace where creators set their own price and revenue split—including 0% to the platform; bootstrapped, no ads, and structurally hostile to extraction by design.

Tips and memberships with lighter branding than Patreon; Gold tier and shop features add platform dependency over time.

The default résumé graph for many industries, increasingly monetized via feed ads, recruiter tools, and upsells—users are the inventory.

Event management and ticketing platform popular with tech communities; free for organisers hosting free events, clean UX, no dark-pattern upsells—VC-backed but behavior is still user-aligned.

US rideshare duopoly player; take rates, incentives, and driver dynamics mirror Uber’s two-sided squeeze with regional variation.

Federated microblogging with no single owner; rough edges, but user surplus and exit to other instances is real.

Creator-owned streaming platform run by Standard Broadcast; subscription-only with no ads and a revenue share that returns the majority to creators—rare structural alignment at scale.

Still a capable player, but ad tiers, password-policy tightening, and recurring price moves shift value from subscribers toward ARPU and shareholders.

Creator subscriptions with high take rate and policy whiplash; payment processors and brand risk shape who can stay on platform.

Membership platform: take rates, discovery limits, and policy risk sit between creators and their audiences.

Incumbent digital wallet: fees, holds on seller funds, and upsells push value toward the network and away from edge users.

Answer-first search with citations; Pro tier and publisher deals raise questions about who gets traffic and margin.

Once a home for thoughtful expert answers; now machine-generated answers, ads, and an AI pivot crowd the human contributions that built it.

Mature platform shifting value toward advertisers, mods as unpaid labor, and product changes that prioritize engagement over quality.

Amazon's doorbell cameras: convenient security that needs a subscription for recordings, and an ongoing push to turn neighborhood footage into a surveillance network.

Merchant platform still oriented toward independence, though app ecosystem, payments, and enterprise upsells add lock-in over time.

Team chat that became the default layer for work comms; switching means migrating channels, bots, and ritualized workflows.

Default music app for many—great discovery and library UX; economics squeeze artists while pushing podcasts, ads, and tier upsells.

Once the default Q&A layer for programmers; the community-built corpus now mostly feeds AI tools, and new questions have all but stopped.

Dominant PC games client; strong library lock-in and social graph, still delivering real value to buyers.

Newsletter + payments with clearer creator cut than ad platforms; network features and video push toward fuller stack lock-in.

Fast clients and huge channels; optional E2EE and a semi-centralized model create a distinct trade-off between freedom and trust in the operator.

The most effective attention machine yet: a recommendation feed that pays off for viewers while ads, TikTok Shop, and creator payout swings shift value to the platform.

Swipe economy: tiered subscriptions, boosts, and pay-to-play visibility monetize anxiety and asymmetry.

Live-streaming hub owned by Amazon: real community value, but shifting payout rules, storage caps, and ad pressure keep moving the goalposts on streamers.

Two-sided marketplace that captures a large slice from riders and drivers; convenience for users exists, but the economic surplus flows to the platform and investors.

Social P2P app folded into PayPal: instant transfer fees, crypto and card upsells, and default public feed history (since reined in).

Frontend cloud with stellar DX: usage-based billing and framework coupling can still surprise teams at scale.

Default chat for much of the world; phone-number identity and network effects make leaving socially costly, while Meta monetizes the ecosystem around it.

A nonprofit reader mission with volunteer editors; ads are off by default and the core reading experience still prioritizes users over rent extraction.

International money transfer service built around mid-market exchange rates and transparent flat fees; publicly traded and profitable without resorting to hidden FX spreads.

API paywalls, algorithmic feeds, verification products, and ad load shift surplus toward the operator and advertisers—classic extraction on a still-central public square.

Console ecosystem built on Game Pass value—now shaped by steep subscription price swings, pulled perks, and account lock-in around what “ownership” means.

Legacy free mail: heavy ads, pay-to-remove-ad tiers, and brand decay; still used as a durable address by many.

Unmatched library and creator economy, but ad load, Shorts push, and policy swings steadily tilt the experience toward Google’s revenue priorities.