When a new tech paradigm bursts on the scene, it starts off messy and inventive.

An era of community gardening and tinkering.

Over time the swarm figures out patterns that work especially well, and those become more common and more financialized.

The reason to create something goes from "it's cool" to "it makes money"

An era of factory farming, efficiency, and consolidation.

In the late stage, aggregators figure out how to use those efficient patterns to create a world unto themselves.

I don't think of the web/app era as two eras, I think of it as one.

2008 was the turning point where it pivoted from the growing / exploratory phase, to the consolidation / extraction phase.

2008 was when the iPhone aggregator got going, and when Facebook's aggregator had become a gravity well.