Let me make this simpler, since there are a lot of comments like yours:
1) If I want to exchange redlined documents with lawyers, I need Microsoft Word. I cannot run a successful business which deals with law firms without Microsoft Word. Most businesses need to deal with law firms. If Microsoft shuts me out of Word, I cannot have a business.
2) If I want to promote my local business, I need to be on social media platforms which my likely customers use.
3) The same goes for niches. If I'm supporting K-12 writing teachers, I need to support Google Docs.
It's not a question of alternatives, best-in-class, or anything else. It's pure network effects. If a platform is >50% dominant in my market, I need to support it, or I'm out-of-business. No one will switch from Twitter to Mastodon or Parler for the sake of doing business with one small business. They'll go next door.
Once a firm has that level of market power, I think it ought to be regulated, both for the same reasons and in the same ways as railways were in the days of Standard Oil.
These companies can literally just kill a small business if they chose to. That's not healthy.
> 1) If I want to exchange redlined documents with lawyers, I need Microsoft Word. I cannot run a successful business which deals with law firms without Microsoft Word. Most businesses need to deal with law firms. If Microsoft shuts me out of Word, I cannot have a business.
I find your reasoning here disingenuous. I have been running a business for almost 2 decades, dealing with law firms and everything and I haven't used Word since I was in high school.
Took a consulting gig with RedHat once. RedHat asked for a document. I gave them a LibreOffice .odt doc (that I wrote on Fedora). They rejected that doc due to inability to access it. I sent them a LibreOffice exported .docx file and they again rejected it due to formatting issues. At that point they specifically requested I use Word and send them a Word document.
Microsoft Word makes the world go round. Sure I can use Wordpad and export a docx file, but no tables, no special effects, etc
1) If I want to exchange redlined documents with lawyers, I need Microsoft Word. I cannot run a successful business which deals with law firms without Microsoft Word. Most businesses need to deal with law firms. If Microsoft shuts me out of Word, I cannot have a business.
2) If I want to promote my local business, I need to be on social media platforms which my likely customers use.
3) The same goes for niches. If I'm supporting K-12 writing teachers, I need to support Google Docs.
It's not a question of alternatives, best-in-class, or anything else. It's pure network effects. If a platform is >50% dominant in my market, I need to support it, or I'm out-of-business. No one will switch from Twitter to Mastodon or Parler for the sake of doing business with one small business. They'll go next door.
Once a firm has that level of market power, I think it ought to be regulated, both for the same reasons and in the same ways as railways were in the days of Standard Oil.
These companies can literally just kill a small business if they chose to. That's not healthy.