Comment by Certhas

I used the term "as established as google". In my mind this certainly meant the market has to be established. As long as an industry is brand new and rapidly developing, things are obviously different. Many early market leaders didn't make it in the internet. But in the last ten years, market leaders haven't been failing in the same way.

So no, not changing the rules, but maybe clarifying the point. Situations such as the rise of the internet in the late 90s and early 2000s are the anomaly, not the rule.

Operating Systems and Internet search are roughly the same they were ten years ago. 3d accelerator cards changed immensely in the years when 3dfx failed. Microsoft and Google are not in businesses where younger agile companies that read the changing tides better can quickly supplant them.

And that's why they get a thousand chances to turn things around while printing money with their "death spiralling" business.