Aggregated markets
Marketing within today's platforms: Meta, Google, TikTok. And now the AI platforms like ChatGPT, where the rules for who gets seen are not yet understood.
FDI method
Growth Cartography is the method behind Marketing Engineering: evidence first, one supervised loop, measurable handoff.
The series · As of 2026
Aggregated. Decentralized. Autonomous.
Growth Cartography compares three market structures through one practical model. Start with Field Guide 001 for the thesis, use the matrix to compare the markets, then follow the marketplace guide that matches your work.
Canonical comparison
The same eight questions, asked of every market.
This is the shared model used across FDI's marketplace pages, Field Guides, and machine-readable site text.
Comparison axis
AggregatedDecentralizedAutonomous
Who owns the railsPlatforms own the distribution rails.Participants govern protocols, wallets, and networks.Callable protocols and agent networks provide the rails.
How discovery happensFeeds, search rankings, and AI answer layers filter attention.Open protocols, communities, attestations, and contribution.Machine-readable catalogs, tool calls, reputation, and citations.
Whose identity mattersPlatform account and persistent first-party identity.Portable wallet identity, ENS names, and attestations.Verifiable organization, agent, and delegated user identity.
Who makes the decisionA person, influenced by platform ranking and recommendation.Participants and communities coordinate through protocol rules.Software agents evaluate and act within human-set constraints.
How value or settlement movesPlatform-mediated ads, subscriptions, and transactions.Tokens and programmable onchain settlement.Delegated mandates, APIs, and machine-speed payment protocols.
Which signals marketers measureReach, qualified attention, citations, conversion, and retention.Contribution, reputation, retention, liquidity, and attestations.Selection, correction rate, citation persistence, latency, and outcomes.
What a team can ownA proven corpus, provenance trail, and permissioned audience.Portable identity, onchain reputation, and a source-grounded corpus.A citable corpus and governed interface agents can query and verify.
How FDI respondsInstrument platforms while building assets that survive rule changes.Make contribution verifiable and carry one governed source across networks.Build a gated, citable interface with human approval at consequential edges.
Three market structures
One thesis, three field guides. All live.
Each guide maps a market structure and grounds it in a real, working build you can pressure-test. Read the full guide, or start with the market's one-pager.
Decentralized markets
Marketing within crypto-powered networks — Farcaster, Lens, DAOs, onchain identity, and the agent settlement layer — where the participants own the rails and no single company controls the feed.
Autonomous markets
Agents transacting with agents. The open protocol stack (MCP → A2A → AP2 → x402) is live; the growth curve points toward marketplaces at the scale of Meta and Google today.
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All three guides are live. Drop your email and we'll reach out as the series grows: new guides, updated data, and the working code that ships with each one. No spam.
Prefer email? Write us at john@ratcliffe-lee.com.