Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement from Joel Spolsky essay about tech companies keeping control of chocke point in the tech stack, and commoditize the djacent stacks as a way of preempting competition

rekated, I think, the law of attractive profits by Clayton Christensen that states “When attractive profits disappear at one stage in the value chain because a product becomes modular and commoditized, the opportunity to earn attractive profits with proprietary products will usually emerge at an adjacent stage.” HBR breaktru ideas of 2004 https://hbr.org/2004/02/breakthrough-ideas-for-2004

Chris Dixon on complements https://cdixon.org/2009/09/10/non-linearity-of-technology-adoption

christensen and spolsky really say the same thing but chosse to show the arrow of causation in different directions, C is worried how the managers of an incumbent company, the sort of company that does portfolio decisions within an estabilished business, can chase profits in other segment of the value chain once they are commoditizied. SPolsky speaks to startups which have doggedly built a business in one segment and need preventing competition, in an environent marked by disruption