[jochem9]

ASML has a near monopoly on the most advanced chip machines. They maintain that by 'just' being the most advanced and having lots of patents.

They haven't branched off into making chips themselves. They keep their focus on selling the factories.

I think they haven't, because ASML itself doesn't have production lines. Every machine is one off. It even gets delivered with a team of engineers to keep it running.

The same probably holds true for software factories: the best ones are assembled by the smartest people (wielding AI in ways most of us don't). They are not in the business to produce software at scale, they are in the business to ensure others can do that using increasingly advanced software factories.

This relies on the premise that such a factory cannot produce a more advanced factory without significant human intervention (e.g. high ingenuity and/or lots of elbow grease). If this doesn't hold true, then we are in for some interesting times x100.