Surface Area

As the cost of production in both the digital and physical world falls to zero, the market has rightly recognised that what matters is distribution.

What the market has not realised is that distribution is downstream of surface area, and that surface area is the most important asset in the world.

Having ‘surface area’ is different to having distribution. Surface area is about the potential to distribute into that surface area. If you have surface area, you can permission access to that area - you can control what is distributed.

It is far more important than distribution itself because you dictate what is and what is not distributed.

Governments have the ultimate and greatest surface area. They set the laws that dictate what can and cannot be distributed.

Another example: when production is free and everyone has a megaphone, the person who owns the "stage" itself (the surface area) becomes the only one with real leverage. It’s a transition from "Who can see me?" to "Who is allowed to exist here?"

It’s not just the ‘attention economy’ that matters - but the ‘permission economy’.

Cost of Production

The price of everything should go down. Meaning, anyone can build anything.

What matters is whether it even matters that you’ve built it?

Is anyone going to use it?

Distribution is the only moat

What matters is whether you can get anyone to use your product.

So when people talk about distribution they talk about social followings, about email lists, about influence, about your ability to sell or market the thing that cost nothing to build. i.e. the attention economy.

You will not build the interface

Now, as cost of production falls to zero anyone can build anything - so why would they just not use something they build themselves, vs what you build.

And the reality is - most apps are going to fail here.

Apps are going to be built in real time based on the exact, personalised context of the user. This interface will be built by the AI+device that is the bridge between the user and the digital.

So most will only be able to distribute data - not interfaces.

Some will, because the product is the particular style of interface - but it seems likely that you would distribute a style guide along with your data, for it then to be made most suitable to the user in your signature style.

So style is a reason someone might procure from you vs build themselves.

But, given AI is already used to creating ‘in the style of X’, it seems like that won’t last long.

Values

The reason someone will procure from you is because they want to, particularly, because its you - or because they have to.

Have to = surface area = access & control = government requiring you to use a particular product - or eliminating others.

Want to is because a user resonates with you, or wants to support you.

As products become indistinguishable from each other, people chose the one that is closest to their values.

Values are going to matter more than they used to.

The market is obsessed with distribution, but distribution is downstream of surface area.

When anyone can build anything for $0, you’re left with two paths:

• Have to = Surface Area = Access and control. It’s the government or the OS telling you what you can use. They own the stage.

• Want to = Values. This is resonance. People use it because it’s you.

The “middle” - the apps that are just okay and have a bit of a following - will fail. AI will build those interfaces on the fly anyway.

If you aren’t building surface area (the gate) or deep values (the reason to enter), you’ve nothing.

(Stop building interfaces). Secure surface area.