Essential piece by Ben Thompson about how technology is changing brands and branding. Hetouches on the implications of lower barriers to entry:

it is significantly easier today to get a startup off the ground; however, that actually means startups needmoreventure capital, not less, because the real challenge is marketing and/or sales (and thus, by extension, venture capital is bifurcating between very large and very small)

and e-commerce:

dominating shelf space was a core part of their strategy,...