>Few companies are willing to accept that ceiling for fear of losing market share.
The question I find interesting is: is this assumption correct? Is service scale the dominant factor in market share, or could you win a significant piece of the pie with a "Smaller YouTube by Humans"?
In theory, a more human touch could attract content creators, who in turn could bring their audience. Whether that would translate to significant market share, though, dunno.
> The question I find interesting is: is this assumption correct? Is service scale the dominant factor in market share, or could you win a significant piece of the pie with a "Smaller YouTube by Humans"?
At least so far, the answer to your second question has been "no," at least if you define "significant" as "that which attracts significant VC investment." (I'm not suggesting that's the best metric, but it's what an awful lot of tech companies use in practice.) This is because the answer to your first question is demonstrably yes: when it comes to services that heavily rely on network effects, service scale is the dominant factor in market share.
It's possible that you could carve out a sustainable niche if you really leaned into the "by humans" part, but it'd still be a niche. I don't think that's necessarily a reason to avoid it.
The question I find interesting is: is this assumption correct? Is service scale the dominant factor in market share, or could you win a significant piece of the pie with a "Smaller YouTube by Humans"?
In theory, a more human touch could attract content creators, who in turn could bring their audience. Whether that would translate to significant market share, though, dunno.