...which is why you need strong regulatory oversight if you want the software market to have any functioning level of efficiency.
The economies of scale are enormous in software (and data-oriented businesses in general). That's good for the efficiency of any given enterprise, but it pushes very heavily towards monopolization and zero competition without regulatory force to counterbalance.
That doesn’t hold at all unless there is significant lock-in that raises switching cost. If there is a company sitting there with no overhead collecting $10m/year for software all of its customers hate, it’s ripe for competition to take it overnight.
The economies of scale are enormous in software (and data-oriented businesses in general). That's good for the efficiency of any given enterprise, but it pushes very heavily towards monopolization and zero competition without regulatory force to counterbalance.