Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Valve, et al have taught us the major lesson: to have staying power, you must become a platform, and aggressively protect your sour

Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Valve, et al have taught us the major lesson: to have staying power, you must become a platform, and aggressively protect your source of lock-in. An ecosystem of applications/businesses that depend on your platform for access to a userbase is the best way to do this. The platform giants, especially Microsoft and Google and to a lesser extent Apple and Facebook, have the power to "NetScape" any other non-platform tech company at will. Mobile apps are coming to exist at Google's mercy, like web sites dependent on "organic" traffic have for the last decade. If Google decided they'd had enough of Uber, they could integrate ride hailing into GMaps and Uber would be done for. They just did this to a handful of startups that were oriented around real-time location tracking. [0] [0] https://blog.google/products/maps/share-your-trips-and-real-time-location-google-maps/ https://blog.google/products/maps/share-your-trips-and-real-...