It's only profitable if you have enough to invest to meet the entry costs in that market. Which is where the regulatory capture is causing trouble by raising entry costs. But that only means you need more or bigger initial investors, not that they don't make money by investing.
> We've always known that a big guy can come into a small guys party and squish them all. That's why microsoft wasn't allowed to push their browser (OS = big guy, browser market = small guys party).
That was an antitrust issue for an entirely different reason. The browser market had the potential to disrupt Microsoft's control over the OS market, because web pages are platform-independent. That gives Microsoft the incentive to dominate the browser market by operating at a loss in order to make sure that web pages are tied to Microsoft Windows by using platform-specific ActiveX controls or web extensions specific to Microsoft's browser.
The web reducing dependence on Windows is largely what happened in the intervening years outside of some specific app markets like gaming (where Microsoft has held on through similar dirty tricks with respect to DirectX and other APIs, and is finally starting to lose their grip).
> We've always known that a big guy can come into a small guys party and squish them all. That's why microsoft wasn't allowed to push their browser (OS = big guy, browser market = small guys party).
That was an antitrust issue for an entirely different reason. The browser market had the potential to disrupt Microsoft's control over the OS market, because web pages are platform-independent. That gives Microsoft the incentive to dominate the browser market by operating at a loss in order to make sure that web pages are tied to Microsoft Windows by using platform-specific ActiveX controls or web extensions specific to Microsoft's browser.
The web reducing dependence on Windows is largely what happened in the intervening years outside of some specific app markets like gaming (where Microsoft has held on through similar dirty tricks with respect to DirectX and other APIs, and is finally starting to lose their grip).