Two years into the pandemic, the meteoric growth of platforms that connect people online is petering out. Not long ago, the appetite for spending time in new digital spaces seemed limitless. Tech companies that offered ways to gather virtually found that users were willing to try almost anything. That’s no longer the case. From Zoom to Roblox, Clubhouse to Peloton, new users are increasingly hard to come by. For our purposes, let’s call these pandemic platforms. Since March 2020, these popular services have ushered in a wave of game-changing experimentation that has laid the groundwork for tomorrow’s digital society. Along the way, entrepreneurs and tech executives have learned what people love–and hate–about living online. “Crisis does catalyze change,” New York University professor Arun Sundararajan told me. The gig economy was born in part out of necessity following the financial crisis. That shock gave companies like Uber and Airbnb a supply of crowd-sourced labor and capital at a time when consumers were willing to try new kinds of experiences that saved them money, explained Sundararajan, an expert on the gig economy. This article appeared as part of The Weekend Pitch newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter here. Other factors were at…
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'Pandemic platforms' offered a new vision of the internet | PitchBook
