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> "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.

It is insidious.


This is like saying Usain Bolt's training regimine is anti-competitive. Leaning into your strengths as an organisation _is competing_.


Competitive advantage is anti competitive from the logic of the matter.


Those two concepts aren't mutually exclusive.




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