> They were so much faster & better than corporate alternatives that you couldn't help but expecting that open projects had the competitive advantage.
That was the first mistake.
Free products don't have a "competitive advantage". They destroy market segments. "Free" is the area denial tactical nuke[0] of business. "Free" is the singularity of business models - as price approaches 0, math starts to break out, and the local fabric of the market unravels. "Free" turns competition into a race for growth.
Being "open source" is optional here. Which is why it's not F/OSS that won on the general market, "free with ads" did. F/OSS is mostly used as a weapon to deny market segments to competitors, forcing them to either leave or play the same "free"/growth game. This is used both offensively, to break into existing market segments, as well as defensively, to "pull the ladder behind you".
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