[mnemonicsloth]

McDonald's. Disney. Walmart. Kroger. Comcast. Verizon.

And many more who sell crops, chemicals, power, machine parts, cars, concrete...

Many companies have billions of customers and no trace of lock-in or virality at all. You might want to shift your perspective a little and remember that there is a world outside of Silicon Valley.

[zht]

Comcast and Verizon have no lock-in?

[mnemonicsloth]

Verizon competes with T-Mobile and AT&T. Comcast competes with a different arm of AT&T, Google Fiber, various older satellite internet services and now Starlink.

Outside the US, broadband providers are still huge but differences in regulation mean there are five or six of them in most markets.

Overall, I think my point still stands: claiming that you can't build a giant company without Silicon Valley's growth formula is ridiculously narrow. The vast majority of big companies are built by other methods.