And, of course, if all that isn’t enough and a new player is somehow able to enter their kill zone, these behemoths know exactly what to do. Venture capitalists know that too, making them cautious about where they invest, and thus making it even more difficult for nascent competitors to get a toehold. All this explains why supracompetitive profits (like Google’s with YouTube) aren’t enough to attract new entrants like the Chicago School still insists they will.

This shows that simply blaming Big Tech for bankrupting culture workers is too blinkered a view. All large firms with excessive power use it to divert maximum value to shareholders and executives: it’s the chokepoints that are the problem. If we really want to make a difference to what ends up in creators’ pockets, that’s what we have to target.