About this episode
Chapter 3 of Machiavelli's The Prince — On Mixed Principalities — is about the specific problem of acquiring territory that used to belong to someone else. What Machiavelli understood in 1513 is that acquisition is not the hard part; incorporation is. Old customs, old institutions, old loyalties are the friction that turns a conquest into a costly holding.
That's an argument that reads uncomfortably well in an era of platform consolidation. What happens when Twitter becomes X? When a beloved indie platform gets bought? Where does the loyalty go — and where does it not?
Chapters
- 0:00 — New principalities
- 5:00 — Why acquisition is easy
- 10:00 — Colonies as garrisons
- 16:00 — The Roman model
- 22:00 — When old customs resist
- 27:00 — Platform consolidation, then and now
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