A classic pattern in technology economics, identified by Joel Spolsky, is layers of the stack attempting to become monopolies while turning other layers into perfectly-competitive markets which are commoditized, in order to harvest most of the consumer surplus; discussion and examples.
Quotes from
“Chapter 1: The Information Economy”:
Traditional rules of competitive strategy focus on competitors, suppliers, and customers. In the information economy, companies selling complementary components, or
complementors, are equally important. When you are selling one component of a system, you can’t compete if you’re not compatible with the rest of the system. Many of our strategic principles are specifically designed to help companies selling one component of an information system.