Marcus Webb covers Big Tech strategy and platform economics. A veteran technology journalist with over 15 years of experience, Marcus specializes in explaining the competitive dynamics and strategic thinking behind the moves of the world's largest technology companies.
When a popular app strips out features users loved, it looks like a mistake. It rarely is. Here's the cold economic logic behind deliberate subtraction.
The graveyard of promising startups swallowed by Google, Meta, and Microsoft reveals a pattern that has nothing to do with incompetence.
Subscriptions aren't just a pricing change. They're a fundamental restructuring of who owns the relationship between software and user.
Paying a $400K engineer to write a three-line script sounds absurd. It's actually one of tech's smartest competitive moves.
Passive sensors, machine learning, and years of behavioral data mean your phone may detect illness before your body sends you a single symptom.
The economics of 'free' software are counterintuitive and brutal. Building an app that charges nothing up front costs far more than one that doesn't.
Why Apple chose Space Gray over silver, and how color choices worth billions happen in windowless conference rooms.
Indexes aren't free. Every one you add is a write tax on your database, and the bill comes due in ways most engineers never notice until production breaks.
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