The real reason why things are the way they are.

Right now the world is experiencing an almost fantastical financial situation, and it is affecting what brands we consume and how.

Central banks are printing the equivalent of the entire market cap of bitcoin, in a single weekend’s “liquidity injection”, leading to rather diabolical asset price inflation. We have fintech versus legacy banks (and the exuberant M&A that goes with it), venture capital situations where the winner-takes-all-until-it-very-suddenly-and-catastrophically-doesn’t (WeWork). Negative interest rates (the lowest in 5000 years - time value of money no longer exists), a stock market that just keeps going up, global currency wars the likes of which we have never seen before, and a re-re-ordering of the global supply chain (China vs the world) are now what we need to keep our eyes on, first and foremost.

This kind of capital flow creates very large biases in the marketplace of ideas and innovations, across sectors. Around the world capital now has a tendency to end up in all the most monopolistic places: think of Uber Eats offering free McDonalds delivery to literally half the developed world at the same time - pension funds are the ones paying for this “customer acquisition” at such massive scale.

It is important to think (and to know) that all this will come to an end with (something like) the global adoption of bitcoin. Bitcoin and its fixed supply means sound money. No printing, and no escaping reality. In this future things, including money itself, will have a tendency to actually cost what they are worth. This is massive.

Today these “forces of fiat currency economics” are often the most significant forces behind the growth and trajectory of the most powerful brands - in particular, global e-commerce. To understand these dynamics well is an essential basis of understanding, when looking to grow your own brand even at a smaller scale, as global platform businesses begin to monopolize many different local markets.

It is up to smaller, striving businesses to focus fanatically on their local markets and their customers, and figure out how to win bigly. It can be done - with the right business and customer insights.

[edit] - Case in point.