Were these apps made possible with VC money, or just made monopolizable? In a different world, I could see most of these areas spawning smaller companies—on a slower timeline, sure—if VC-backed companies couldn't use massive up-front capital to suck the air out of the room. We could certainly have app-based taxis and restaurant delivery without Uber or DoorDash; hardware and bandwidth have gotten cheap enough that we could have more Vimeos and Floatplanes instead of one big YouTube; Slashdots and Diggs and HNs without Reddit... etc.