November 21: Amazon’s Self-Service Platforms
When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there’s no expert gatekeeper ready to say “that will never work!”
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Source: 2011 Shareholder Letter
Published: April 2012
Amazon’s Self-Service Platforms
In Jeff Bezos’s 2011 shareholder letter, he writes:
“The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity—to pursue their dreams.”
Amazon Web Services: pay-as-you-go services that radically transform capital expense into a variable cost. AWS is self-service: you don’t need to negotiate a contract or engage with a salesperson—you can just read the online documentation and get started.
Fulfillment by Amazon: an easy-to-use console (Seller Central) or—for the more technically inclined—a set of APIs so that you can use the Amazon fulfillment center network like a giant computer peripheral.
Kindle Direct Publishing: authors can publish a book on their schedule instead of the typical year or more delay in traditional publishing. Authors keep 70% of the selling price instead of the 17.5% they’d get from big publishers.
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