> "Building a moat" frames anti-competitive behavior as a defense
This is a drastic take, I think to most of us in the industry "moat" simply means whatever difficult-to-replicate competitive advantage that a firm has invested heavily in.
Regulatory capture and graft aren't moats, they're plain old corrupt business practices.
The problem is that moat is a defensive word and using it to describe competitive advantage implies that even anti-competitive tactics are defensive because that's the frame under which the conversation is taking place.
Worse that "moats" are a good thing, which they are for the company, but not necessarily society at large. The larger the moat, the more money coming out of your pocket as a customer.
This is a drastic take, I think to most of us in the industry "moat" simply means whatever difficult-to-replicate competitive advantage that a firm has invested heavily in.
Regulatory capture and graft aren't moats, they're plain old corrupt business practices.