No, this is not a paranoid conspiracy theory. This is just a thought experiment at taking current trends to their logical extremes. I quite like the results, however.
One thing I quite enjoy about watching large tech companies is their rather straightforward approach to problem solving. Having trouble breaking into a certain industry? Just reinvent the industry. Is one company causing you problems with their chokehold on the market? Invent their competition and push them out of the way. Consider how many industries Apple has essentially invented in the last decade. This is a very different approach from large corporations in other industries. GM, Ford, Honda, Chrysler, all the automakers, all expanded until they could expand no more, and then settled down to compete for incrementally larger slices of the existing market share. (Unless you're talking about Tesla, which is as much a tech company as a car company, and acts like it.)
Recently, I was discussing this with my brother in relation to the video game company Valve. Over the last decade, through the incremental growth and development of their Steam platform, Valve has managed to snap up something like 75% of the total PC video game distribution market. As a consumer, I will admit that I think the last time I bought a hard copy of a PC game was Halo 2; everything else I could desire is either on Steam or can be downloaded directly from the developer. And given the choice, I'll go with Steam. They have an extremely well-integrated social and stat-tracking front-end, and more to the point, they have a ridiculous economic engine in the form of TF2 Hats, Dota 2 cosmetic items, trading cards, and all the other games that provide market items to feed the growing Steam economy.
