VC can spend all the money in the world and it won't matter if the cost of switching providers is effectively zero.

If I want to switch from Windows to Linux, I have to reconsider a whole variety of applications, learn a different UX, migrate data, all sorts of annoyances.

When I switch between Codex and Claude Code, there is literally no difference in how I interact with them. They and a number of other competitors are drop in replacements for each other.

>I'd like to think the superior product wins. But Windows still thrives despite widespread Linux availability.

That's because by most metrics Linux is inferior is Windows.