I would argue that the only barrier right now is information asymmetry. With the right knowledge I should be able to compete with the big boys by just moving co

I would argue that the only barrier right now is information asymmetry. With the right knowledge I should be able to compete with the big boys by just moving compute around to the cheapest provider, getting information using nothing more than a script for scraping pricing pages and being able to run code on distros derived from either Debian or RHEL. The thing is, that I don't have the information that the insiders do about the billions of other workloads that are being run. They should be able to use that information to massively reduce costs (aka under utilization of resources) and more importantly to _undercut the prices of their competitors_ but they are not. Where I agree with you is that if I tried to do such a thing and they found out, they would just drop their prices and force me out. They can do this because relatively speaking they have infinite capital compared to an individual.