To help understand where our digital lives are going next, I’ll steal a line from “All the President’s Men”: Follow the money.
Why is Spotify going big into podcasts? Because music streaming is a financial death trap and Spotify has to find something that isn’t. Uber’s push into delivering everything is a classic tactic: If one business isn’t profitable, use it as a foundation to sell something else that is. Apple is branching into fitness class subscriptions and (maybe eventually) cars because it’s trying to find a second act after the iPhone.
