Not throwaway 'cos I'm in Vermont :D That's a really good point. To the extent that power is the accumulation of capital, and gaining dominance in free service

Not throwaway 'cos I'm in Vermont :D That's a really good point. To the extent that power is the accumulation of capital, and gaining dominance in free services to produce lock-in and monetization in other ways, this is an obvious insight. Also, it's been Google's business model this whole time, which suggests that it works really well. There's a conversation worth having about the balance between the benefits we get from natural monopolies of this nature, and the power traded away through enabling them.