Industries
Industry explainers look past a single company to the economics, competition, and structural forces that shape everyone in a market.
What this section covers
- How money flows through an industry — who captures the profit and why.
- Common business models, such as franchising, subscriptions, or platforms.
- Competitive structure: scale, switching costs, and how rivals differentiate.
- Structural forces like input costs, labor, regulation, and technology.
Where to start today
Our first published explainer sits in Restaurants & Food Service. McDonald’s: The Real Estate Business Behind the Burgers shows how a franchise model can turn a restaurant chain into something closer to a landlord, and why franchisee economics matter to the whole system.
You can also filter companies by industry. New industry explainers will be listed here once they are published.