I get the moat idea. But are there really any moats? What's a good moat these days anyway? Isn't being first and "really good" fine as well?
Meta and X proven surprisingly resilient in the face of pretty overwhelming negative sentiment. Google maintains monopoly status on Web Search and in Browsers despite not being remarkably better than competition. Microsoft remains overwhelmingly dominant in the OS market despite having a deeply flawed product. Amazon sells well despite a proliferation of fake reviews and products. Netflix thrives even while cutting back sharply on product quality. Valve has a near-stranglehold on PC games distribution despite their tech stack being trivially replicable. The list goes on.
People citing their current high prices would be right. But human brains are smarter than chatgpt, and vastly more energy efficient. So we know it's possible.
Does this oversimplify?
(And a lot of stores like Ubisofts or EA's were very feature lite tbh.)
They have had years and still not even close, from both the consumer side and the developer side.
Amazon also has a significant advantage in its logistics that underpin their entire business across the globe and that nobody else can match.
You're also wrong about how Google maintains its monopoly, or Microsoft.
All I see is bias and an unwillingness to understand, well, any of the relevant topics.
A vertically integrated system that people depend on with non-portable integrations is a moat.
Regulatory Capture is a moat.
I suppose competitor would have to be really good on those times most users need something better.
So it is the brand and familiarity. It would need to get really bad even on most basic things to be replaced.