Well, there is lots of disconfirming evidence here - and not just for platform companies but also from other businesses.
https://twitter.com/iRadhikaGupta/status/1396363988124848129
Take the examples of Uber and Airbnb for example. When they started out, they not only took on entrenched players (taxi operators and hotels), they also took on regulations.
Indeed, if you read the history of these companies, you will find that they pretty much broke the laws that existed in their early days.
Time after time, you will find that laws change to accommodate new business models that emerge from the ingenuity of humans. Like now we have regulations that regulate these two business models which didn't exist when these companies came into being.
This idea was explained beautifully in a book published long before either of these two companies was born. And that book is this:
Here are two excerpts:
When the economy is shaken again by a powerful set of new opportunities with the emergence of the next technological revolution, society is still strongly wedded to the old paradigm and its institutional framework.
"Suddenly, in relation to the new technologies, the old habits and regulations become obstacles, the old services and infrastructures are found wanting, the old organizations and institutions are inadequate."
"A new context must be created; a new 'common sense’ must emerge and propagate."
In other words, old laws and old regulations will have to adapt to the new world if the adoption rates of the technologies which challenge the old paradigm become large enough.
When Uber adoption took off, regulators had to take notice and allow this new business model to become legitimate, legal, and proper, despite all the objections from the taxi operators. The same thing happened with Airbnb.
The big lesson here is that the law eventually follows technology. It has to play catch up.
When millions of people start using the new product or service and love the value proposition it offers, lawmakers (politicians), have no choice. They must change the laws to accommodate the new models. Or risk losing the next election.
The early investors in both Uber and Airbnb were betting that obsolete laws will eventually change to accommodate new (unregulated and probably illegal under current laws) services created from a tech revolution — services that people really wanted to use. And they were right.
I will add another excerpt from the book to illustrate the importance for me to step back at look at history of tech innovation and regulation when I am studying tech innovations like blockchain despite the fact that 工 句回几’卞 句回 亡尺と尸卞回
“In real life, the trajectory of a tech revolution is not as smooth and continuous as the stylised curve presented.”
“The process of installation of each new technology-economic paradigm begins with a battle against the power of the old, which is ingrained in the established production structure and embedded in the socio-cultural environment and in the institutional framework.”
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