>Question: why does the market fail so miserably in this respect? This is just typical late stage capitalism, no? The step after commoditization isn't "and the

>Question: why does the market fail so miserably in this respect? This is just typical late stage capitalism, no? The step after commoditization isn't "and then they just quietly settled for being treated like a utility and not having huge profit margins anymore". It's more often "and then they tried to find other ways to monetize by selling ads and demographics information" or "then they bought up their competitors and raised prices again" or "then they formed a cartel with their competitors" or "then they tried to de-commoditize the product category by charging 200% more for a 20% performance improvement, while stopping production of the previous version" or "then they started charging more for related services and maintenance" (cf. printer ink cartridges and razor blades). Being the "winner" or "last/biggest company standing" of a product category means you get to do all of the above consumer-hostile fuckery to try to keep profit margins high.