I think we are partially to blame for this too though. For the last 10-20 years the whole goal of a founder was to grow a business, get acquired then exit. If founders instead focused on building a sustainable business maybe we would have a more diverse tech landscape.

It is the result of lack of regulation. They are all allowed to buy their competition.

Classic economies of scale. It’s a lot more efficient for one company to make one million services of lemonade than it is for one million people to make one serving each. Even if the homemade version is “better”.

This is what happens when everyone is incented to trade low-probability risk for short-term profits. Because who would bet that a giant CDN would be blocked like this?

I agree that oligopolies are more stable than polyopolies, but a huge part of why the internet collapsed in a handful of companies is how stock markets and venture capital love monopolies.

X is a minor player. Replace it with AWS