Is 2021 A Narrative Changing Year For Shopify?
One thing I expect to start seeing more and more of -- this is the year Shopify losing control of its "rebels" narrative and starts to be held more accountable for the unintended consequences of its success - in particular, fraud and its relationship with partners.
Why is that? In most countries, companies can be successful up to a certain point, and when they reach an inflection point at which they start to get a lot more scrutiny.
2021 is likely that year for Shopify. What do I mean? With regards to fraud, it's so easy to set up a store that in any other scenario Shopify could be seen by regulators as "enabling" if they are not careful.
As a signal of this, I already saw the first article about this topic. With the COVID surge on the rise, the media looks for new narratives and so I suspect you will see Shopify try to get ahead of this.
The first big test is if it starts to message it's fraud protection, or if it goes the other direction - "we're only a platform."
