If you're trying to start an actual business, it's very very difficult to get people to pay for your solution when a large incumbent can just pay people to use their competitive (potentially sub-standard) product by burning through mountains of, (sometimes not even their own), money. Or once you start to gain some traction, deplatform you from social/search, or bury you in frivolous lawsuits. It can be done, it's just not very straightforward (unless you also already have your own mountains of cash, or are very well connected). But, business is business, so sink or swim?
Otherwise, it's much easier to ride someone else's huge marketing budget (Apple App Store, WordPress plugins, ChatGPT etc.), which doesn't change the competitive landscape and gives those incumbents even more power (merchants/developers/creators touched by the platform's Midas finger become dependent on the platform because it's their income, then their users buy further into the parent system, etc.).
