I wonder if the internet is naturally predisposed towards monopolies, or the culture of tech companies predisposes them to monopolistic behavior.

Let's look at similar industries. Better integration and data allows you to sell your product better, and more sales allows for more data and $$ needed for integration. No reason this vicious cycle only applies to internet companies.

Why didn't Ford buy up petrol stations in the US which could only serve Ford cars ? Market consolidation would let them negotiate a lower petrol price for all Ford cars and customers would struggle to switch without the same petrol-network or low-prices. Tesla is clearly demonstrating this as a car company with tech culture. They tried a 'super charger' monopoly thing, were nearly successful, but the presence of existing competitors made it difficult to pull it off. But Ford at its peak would've likely gotten away with it.

Tech companies are in an extortionate relationship, and the scale imbalance between their average customer (a 10 people mini-shop) and Google is so massive, that Google can afford to bleed many customers in the effort to find the maximally aggressive deal in the negotiation. How much can we get away with before we start bleeding customers, is a question that Google likely knows the answer to better than anymore.

Which brings me to why I think tech heads towards monopolies. It is "competence at scale". Every monopoly can expand vertically or extort data from their customers. But scaling vertically means more employees, more communication friction and inevitable mediocrity through IBM-ization of your company. More data is also not useful unless you can actually do anything useful with it.

That's where tech comes in. Tech companies can scale up vertically with products without needing as much human overhead, reducing the aforementioned friction. And most importantly, tech companies figured out how to actually make use of the data. It also helps that tech data collection usually involves clicking a checkbox and not sending thousands of foot-soldiers to take industry wide sensor measurements.

I came full circle as I wrote this comment, because I've just had an epiphany : "what is a tech company"?

Zillow, WeWork, Doordash etc. are on their surface, a light digital layer on a traditional company. I always wondered why they were considered tech companies. Target has a website and so does my landlord, but they aren't tech companies. In fact, the exact traits that lead to a culture obsessed with becoming a natural monopoly that define a tech company. A tech company has nothing to do with software, other than the fact that it has to do with data.

The cultural obsession with finding efficiencies vertically (control e2e) and horizontally (scale), inevitably turning into a gatekeeping monopoly is the core characteristic that defines a tech company. Both require a ton of easy data, and only that, is why tech companies write software. Software companies aren't always tech companies. But tech companies are forced to be Software companies. I've just realized that WeWork was in fact a legitimate tech company because it was a landlord obsessed with vertical and horizontal efficiencies. That's it.