Comment by LeifCarrotson

Why just two companies? The article describes one company with a chokehold in one spot of the vertical and many other companies producing commodity complements.

But there are lots of verticals near each other, so there can be many people at one level working with commodities at another level, who likewise believe that the people above/below them are also generating a commodity complement.

What we end up with instead is a global economy of people generating value and building things that make lives better, which I think is awesome! Generating value is the most legitimate reason to have people pay you - you don't have to extract rent from a monopoly position to be a viable business.