Thread by @swardley

X : Do you think Amazon will need to be regulated because of its size?
Me : No. Regulation should be used to prevent market failure and not protect the incompetent.
X : Are you saying Amazon is incompetent?
Me : No. Their competitors are.

X : How?
Me : Gosh. First a couple of things to know. Cloud was highly anticipatable before Amazon launched EC2 in 2006, many of us were building in this space beforehand. Yes, companies have inertia but this was a known change.
X : And?

Me : Amazon was at the bottom of the hill in 2006, up against huge competitors who had all the resources, contacts, finances and well ... everything. Amazon outplayed them all. Now Amazon is at the top of the hill with all the resources, contacts, finances etc.
X : So?

Me : Execs of these companies who have been soundly beaten despite having all the advantages are now claiming they will make some sort of comeback through their brilliance of strategy. They haven't got a hope, many know this.
X : What has this got to do with regulation?

Me : They can't outcompete Amazon on strategy because those execs are hopeless at it. They can't outcompete on finance, resources and contacts because they've lost this all to Amazon. The only thing they can compete on is getting some regulator to protect their collective arses.

... that's the problem with this legislative approach, it has nowt to do with preventing market failure and everything to do with a bunch of execs that are out of their depth trying to hold onto their positions and it'll make no difference.
X : Why?

Me : Let us say that in some extreme scenario a regulator forced Amazon to hand-over all the AWS services to those past competitors. What's the result?
X : The competitors win?
Me : No, in fifteen years Amazon will have taken over the whole space again.

... the problem is the competitors need to adapt, they need to up their gameplay. Many are failing. You only legislate against market failure, you can't legislate against incompetence in a market. You can only hope that companies evolve.

X : But that means Amazon will win everything?
Me : No, there are some new and powerful competitors from Alibaba to Netflix. It's just those old giants of hardware / software aren't on the list.
X : You think the execs are stupid?
Me : No. Incompetent. Not fit for purpose.

X : What about blockchain, IoT and AI?
Me : If you're banking on that to save you then you're into "prayers to some deity" type desperation. Amazon will own it, along with Alibaba etc.
X : But the cloud will decentralise.
Me : Already happening and Amazon will own that to.

X : So you think everyone should give up?
Me : Hell no. They should adapt. It's perfectly possible to survive on and compete with Amazon. Ask Netflix.

X : I don't think it's fair to call them incompetent.
Me : Loosing an entire market when you have all the advantage is a pretty good example of "not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully"

X : What about Microsoft?
Me : It's the exception that proves the rule. They are doing a fine job of evolving in difficult circumstances.