Actually, what you are seeing is the birth of a new breed of giant, one which is based on the Economy of Abundance model of economics. MS, FB, Google, all of these companies are a hybrid corporation which is based in EoA economic models while still competing in a EoS market. Nor do I really dispute your "winner take all" arguments. They are quite valid during this transition phase.
But they are not long term survival tactics as the economic model moves further and further into the EoA. They are very much survival tactics of the EoS which is why they dominate now, but the sheer enormity of the modern corporate giant makes them ill suited to a swiftly changing and dynamic marketplace environment that will be the result of fully developed universal competitive market. I worked for Sony for several years, and many other corporations over time. They all share one commonality, a very strong resistance to change. Incremental change is the only change they desire, because it's too hard to move swiftly. I designed and offered to Sony a VR rig similar to the Kinect (plus Occulus plus omnidirectional treadmill for a fully immersive VR setup) all the way back in 2000 when I was an employee. I was politely informed they were not interested. It has taken them 14 years to finally announce a VR setup, and it will likely be at least another year before that rig even makes it to market. Why? Because the Corporate mentality is risk adverse. The "cutting edge" is usually done by a much smaller company who is virtually anonymous, and only when it is about to be 'perfected' does the large company 'acquire' the smaller company, once it is sure the device is likely to be a successful product. The "winner take all" strategy is a means of "gatekeeping" that leaves all the risk to small companies, then swoops in and takes the fruits while simultaneously eliminating a potential competitor. The problem with this is that it take months to years to deal with all the 'red tape' such strategies require.
That works well in the environment in which those weeks and years fit the developmental timescales, but how well do you believe it will work when new devices may only take weeks to days (or even hours) to develop using off the shelf CAD/CAM software that could enable Joe Schmoe to develop an idea without any prior engineering skill?
Yes, new giants are being born. But those new giants will get smaller and smaller, and have less time to grow and develop as time passes, until the average size is likely to be no more than a few dozen employees and have a 'lifespan' of mere months.
It's not that I dispute your arguments. I merely see them as only applying to a short period of time during the transition phase. As I pointed out in my essay, it's a matter of only looking at the near term, and then assuming that nothing changes beyond that point. You are quite correct with your assessment, as far as it goes. I am looking beyond that stage, and the next and the next, to what will occur further down the road.
What works now is not in dispute. That some possible examples of an abundance model (such as your software example) have failed to take root during the scarcity model is also not under dispute. There are numerous factors that have not existed before, and many others which have not yet matured. We are moving into a new 'reality' but we are not yet there. Our challenge is to see beyond 'now' and past 'what works now' to understand what factors will change, and to then understand what those changes will cause, without the hindrance of our limited concepts of 'how things should work because that's how they have worked.'
And no, I was not arguing that Luckey could have told Zuckerberg to go bother someone else, I was pointing out that EoS principles still apply at present. (and as an aside, I kind of expect FB or Google to announce plans to buy SL in the near future and incorporate it as their 'universal VR shared worldspace' in an effort to create a 'default VR shared world' that would serve as a primary 'inbetween' UI to any number of VR platforms and games.)
