Tech monopolies tend not to fall like Rome. They fall like Venice. They’re still there, and no-one actually invades them, but the trade routes moved, the things that gave them power and wealth stop mattering, and they become just another city, and then a backwater.
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Replying to @benedictevans
Microsoft is currently the world's *largest* company by market capitalization, and that is not at all independent of its never really dismantled dominance over Windows/Office. There are indeed more places to monopolize but that's not same as routes moving—a zero-sum transaction.pic.twitter.com/drjjODFFlK
4 replies 4 retweets 36 likes -
Replying to @zeynep
Look at IBM's share price in the years after 1995. A good business doing well for shareholders is not AT ALL the same as market dominance. Control of the PC has been irrelevant for a decade. Arguably two decades.
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Replying to @benedictevans
IBM's dominance was, for sure, significant and it declined but it was an enterprise only company and already stilted by the nineties. (I worked for it at one point!) Never with 2 billion ordinary users. Weak network effects. And even 40 years later, *still* #34 on Fortune 500.
1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
It's possible that Facebook/Google with eventually be upended due to Venice/trade routes type shifts, but unlikely anytime soon (imagine IBM being allowed to buy up everyone else the way Facebook/Google/Apple do). The strongest examples took decades to slowly shift in importance.
1 reply 1 retweet 18 likes -
Replying to @zeynep
Apple has never made an acquisition that changed its market power. Even NeXT and PA Semi can't be so described. IBM bought Lotus and many other things. And the shifts to the web and then mobile happened very quickly.
2 replies 2 retweets 22 likes -
Replying to @benedictevans
Shift to mobile and web happened, and yes quickly, and Microsoft is still the largest company in the world (tweet one). The big ones are buying both potential competitors but also all the talent. Apple's acquistions are indeed earlier, drying up talent.https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-14-or-more-mystery-acquisitions-6-months-2019-5 …
2 replies 2 retweets 14 likes -
Replying to @zeynep @benedictevans
Apple is sitting on, what, 200+ billion cash? It can acquihire almost anyone for a long, long time. My point isn't that shifts don't happen but when they do, they are slow, not as consequential as it seems plus this is not a very competitive ecology right now re:the big ones.
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Replying to @zeynep
You could say the same of Microsoft, or Yahoo, or indeed IBM. IBM had the cash to buy Microsoft. Cash isn't power when there are fundamental structural changes happening
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It’s certainly possible to run a company down. Do you see a company today turning down acquisition the way Facebook turned down Yahoo? Less likely. Chances you’d be crushed/copied are high (see Snap).
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