Used to be. Now the megacorp just buys the disrupting platform

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Can you imagine a more effective way to incentivise more people to start even more disrupting platforms? Can you image a more effective way to get investors to give money to these upstarts?

It's much easier to get your rabble-rousing startup to threaten disruption (and then be bought up as a precaution), than if you had to actually battle it out in the marketplace to the bitter end.

Most revolutions are merely power transfers.

But sometimes the incumbent crushes the revolutionary.

And sometimes the incumbent hires or bribes the revolutionary.

And sometimes the incumbent guts the revolutionary and wears his face as a mask.