Stage 3: Cashing in

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.

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

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.

Flagship consumer LLM: free tier competes for attention; Plus, Team, and API convert habit into recurring revenue.

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

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

Legacy OTA family: bundling, member pricing, and supplier terms tilt the stack toward the intermediary.

Google’s LLM family bundled with Workspace and Android: utility rises with account depth; free use feeds the broader ad and data stack.

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

Free email with powerful search, paid behind Workspace; ads and AI features tie identity to Google’s broader stack.

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.

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+.

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

Consumer inbox on the Microsoft graph: Microsoft 365 upsells, Focused Inbox, and account convergence toward paid bundles.

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.

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

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

Microsoft’s search layer—often a conduit into Copilot, Edge defaults, and Windows integration rather than neutral retrieval.

Dominant Chromium default—fast and compatible, tightly coupled to Google accounts, sync, and the ads ecosystem that funds the web’s biggest funnel.

Food delivery marketplace with fees stacked on restaurants and riders; convenience for diners, thin margins and policy fights everywhere else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Default Q&A layer for programmers; community labor and SEO gravity built the corpus, while ownership and product choices steer monetization and AI reuse.

Secondary ticket marketplace—liquidity and buyer protection on one side, fees and volatile pricing on the other.

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.

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

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

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

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