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When new highways are built, who captures the tollgate?
Whenever a new technology emerges, people tend to ask the same questions.
“What can we build with this?”
“What should we build to get rich?”
These aren’t wrong questions. But if you look at the pattern of technological history, a more profitable question always sits underneath:
“Who stands at the point where money flows through this system?”
1. Railroads
• Railroads made the world faster. Everyone assumed railway companies would make the most money.
• But railroads were capital-intensive, heavily regulated, and ultimately margin-constrained.
• The real money wasn’t in the tracks themselves, but around them.
• Logistics, distribution, and urban hubs won.
2. Cars and Highways
• When automobiles took off, it seemed manufacturers would dominate.
• Reality turned out differently. Roads became public goods, and manufacturing turned into a margin game.
• Value shifted to oil, insurance, finance, and retail.
• And more importantly, to those who designed the rules of the network.
3. The Internet
• Early on, many believed network owners would control everything.
• But connectivity itself quickly became commoditized.
• The real value emerged not in infrastructure, but in the gateways.
• Search, advertising, marketplaces, and platforms defined the winners.
4. Mobile and App Stores
• With smartphones and app stores, developers looked like the new kings.
• But the real tollgate belonged to Apple.
• The 30% fee is not a business model.
• It is control over who gets to pass.
5. Card Networks
• @Visa and @Mastercard are not consumers, banks, or merchants.
• Yet they consistently capture value.
• The reason is simple:
• Transactions are optional. Passing through the network is not.
• And because a single monopoly would become a point of failure, a strange equilibrium persists.
The pattern repeats:
1. A new path opens
2.Everyone builds on top of it
3.Competition erodes margins
4.Value concentrates at the point of flow
Now: Blockchains and agent economies
Today, as infrastructure meets markets again, people ask:
“Should we launch an L1?”
“Should we issue a token?”
“Which chain should we build on?”
"Should our company start using @openclaw?"
But the better question remains the same:
“Where does the money enter, and where does it exit?”
A simple analogy:
• CBDCs resemble highways built by states
• Stablecoins resemble alleyways that emerge organically
This is not a question of construction capability.
Both are necessary for the system to function.
So where is the money?
Not on the highway.
Not in the alleyways.
It materializes at the tollgate that connects them.
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In a world where both highways and alleyways are being built simultaneously, people will always find a way. If one path is blocked, they will climb mountains or cross oceans.
One thing is certain:
even the person crossing a strait on a raft, or hiking through remote terrain, can now transact - thanks to global connectivity layers.
So the question collapses into one:
Where is your tollgate?
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