Labs don't win on distribution alone — they needed hyperscaler deals, argues dev
wonderwomancode · x · 2026-10-18
Responding to shawmakesmagic's claim that "the winners are the ones with broad distribution and good unit economics, i.e. the labs — OpenAI could eat Instinct in a single launch," wonderwomancode pushes back:
- If distribution decided outcomes, OpenAI and Anthropic wouldn't exist — broad distribution belonged to Microsoft, Google and Amazon first
- Labs got where they are through the deals they had to make with hyperscalers
The rebuttal reframes the debate from "labs vs apps" to labs' dependence on cloud giants, touching the core dispute over AI value capture.
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