When you have all the user data in one place a swarm is better at finding the use cases than coordinating as consensus in a slime mold of a company.

The single company is a consensus machine.

It gets more bland over time.

The Tyranny of the Marginal User.

A swarm is an anti-consensus machine that creates novelty.

When a swarm and a single entity go face to face on similar footing, the swarm wins.

The single entity might win for a short period of time if it gets lucky, but the asymmetry of the swarm will dominate over time.

The single entity has to have a good outcome every turn.

The swarm needs at least one member to have a good outcome every turn… wildly more likely.

The problem is historically the swarm can't have the user's data to operate on because of privacy; as a user you need to trust everyone who has access to your data.

All of the members of an anonymous swarm can't have your data; that would be terrifying!

So the slow, lowest common denominator aggregator wins today, by default.

Even though it's slow to find new use cases, it finds more than the swarm, because the swarm isn't viable.

But what if you had laws of physics that allowed a swarm in a fully private way?

The swarm's natural advantages would win out.