I would like to propose a new simile for discussing software/hardware/web platforms: “tilled into the soil”.
If you have a field you want to grow valuable crops on, but the soil is too poor, a way to fix this is to spend the first few years growing a less valuable but hardier crop. Eventually, when the soil is good enough, you take your plough to the field and till the old plants into the soil, where they act as fertilizer for the new crop you then sow.
The obvious simile: this is what happens to users and small content producers once a platform matures