"Google had the best search engine, it became a centre of gravity..."
Almost no one made serious attempts at competing with Google. And not because of network effects or any other hard blocker.
In the early 2000s, the industry just wasn't mature enough to heavily fund serious competition.
By the 2020s the industry has funding and founders ready to jump on any huge opportunity that presents itself.
There are of course downsides, but this competitive landscape in AI seems like a huge net win for users in terms of lower costs and faster progress.
The Wright brothers' original vision for airplanes was that they could pretty much take off and land from a basic field. And they did seem to consider the idea of heavily prepared airfields something of a failure case.
There are very good reasons things didn't go that way. But, as is often the case, the original vision had a very pure and strong idea in it that has been somewhat lost. It's still alive in helicopters, and some other air vehicles, but it'd be cool if future aircraft were more robust in this way.
The Wright Flyer massed 274 kg. Of course it could take off from an unprepared field-- with a modern engine, it could be doing nine foot takeoffs like in STOL competitions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMVjYT6laKo
Gliders are made to land in random fields without major obstacles (like cows, fences or hay bales) and regularly do that when they can't manage to glide to an airport.
You need to disassemble the plane afterwards (a routine operation, gliders are built that way) or possibly even have a powered airplane land nearby and aero-tow you back up if the field is good enough for that. :-)
Almost no one made serious attempts at competing with Google. And not because of network effects or any other hard blocker. In the early 2000s, the industry just wasn't mature enough to heavily fund serious competition.
By the 2020s the industry has funding and founders ready to jump on any huge opportunity that presents itself.
There are of course downsides, but this competitive landscape in AI seems like a huge net win for users in terms of lower costs and faster progress.