[nonbirithm]

This should really be mentioned more often more often when discussing monopolies: you have to convince users that your platform is better than the massive ubiquitous one, or they won't leave.

If Discord was advertising itself as a hot new startup trying to disrupt the instant messaging space at a time when the ubiquitous option was Skype, someone like me might have welcomed them with open arms. Now we're stuck with Discord, but only because it won over almost everyone with the quality of its UX and the ensuing network effects over every alternative.

This is what makes me think that being pushed towards a selection of functionally competent and siloed, monopolistic platforms is simply the new reality. I have a hard time believing that you can convince tens of millions of people that their platform is a bad choice if they never see any problems, no matter what we might think of their opinions.