[runnerup]

This actually feels to me like a concept worth exploring. I think we lack a concise term or phrase to reference what GP was trying to communicate.

In my heart I feel similarly to GP - and it does feel a lot like how I feel about tragedy of the commons situations. Maybe there seems to be a shared opportunity for everyone if these private companies would make the most of their financial capital, market dominance, dominance in human resources, and most especially leverage their network effects.

That would lead to better things for everyone, like the invention of smartphones. But the same corporations can also waste unimaginable resources and achieve very little. Often their failures don't just have little effect, but rather the failures choke/smother the market and prevent better alternatives from being widely used.