The hazard of reading stuff like this is that it makes the world seem much more orderly and predictable than it is. Case in point: Zoom. "Videoconferencing is a commodity". "Distribution is all that matters". And all of a sudden, someone does this "commodity" a lot better, without the pre-existing network/distribution/brand of someone like Skype, Google, etc. How do they explain this? How does it make sense that a team can work heads-down without any clear distribution advantage and just grind, and build a large, meaningful company by making a better product?
It's the same deal with Yamaha Motorcycles. Read their story. Bootstrapped from a "nobody" brand in the US, stiff competition against Harley-Davidson and their ilk. They just got better and better, gradually improving year after year, until they're taken seriously by hardcore enthusiasts and are one of the leading motorcycle companies in the US. How do you explain this success in terms of moats, 2x2 matrices, SWOT analysis, competitive positioning, etc? Sometimes a company wins because they just want it more badly and are willing to push their people harder, and outwork/out-deliver the competition.
Calling the tech "still fundamentally a commodity" bothers me not because I'm a technologist, but because it's horribly hand-wavey and imprecise. It sounds precise, but what...exactly...does this mean? As other commenters have pointed out, sure, a commodity that cost oh, 100 billion dollars and a decade to build, isn't easily duplicated, and meaningfully contributes to the user experience? I heard someone describe gold as a "6000-year bubble" last week in the context of the "crypto bubble". Same idea--"a commodity that nobody else has, took a decade to build, and over 100 billion dollars". Some "commodity".
As a CEO, I increasingly find all this strategy stuff noise. All that matters is delighting your customers. You do that and charge a reasonable price, you're going to succeed. It might take a while, and of course you need decent sales/marketing execution, but overall, just focus on keeping customers happy, and you'll get there.