Comment by tavavex

But I wasn't talking about things that are just hard to replicate. I was talking about companies that keep getting further away from anyone matching them, forever. No one can match ASML's prowess, but do you think that China today is further from catching up to them than they were 10 years ago? Going from nothing to modern silicon fabrication is a lot harder than going from existing knowledge but no expertise/technology to implement it, to actually making it happen. That's my point.

You have a valid point about ecosystems though - that is a rare exception where first movers can keep holding onto their advantage that I hadn't thought of. However, it's not really applicable when talking about a commodity like space launches.