Whether its Chinese knock-offs or online storage, Cringley fails to make the case for "huge monopoly" just like Microsoft. Microsoft got their OS monopoly via business practices that they arguably should have been (but weren't) convicted of. Amazon is taking over the world because...oh, I'll let Robert tell you in his own words:
"Part of the reason AWS is gaining market share is because Microsoft’s Azure doesn’t boot virtual machines quite as fast."
Well, those fuckers, with their crooked business dealings...wait a minute, did you just say a VM on Amazon's product boots faster than Microsoft's? Be right back...
Of course, Cringley will proceed to tell us the awful outcome of this monopoly, just like it was back in the 90s and early 2000s with Microsoft:
"Put simply, AWS is a pain to deal with if you are a customer big enough to be in personal communication and not just a credit card number. This, too, is like the old Microsoft."
So, to recap, Amazon is taking over the world because they have a better product, but the downside is that their customer service sucks. Microsoft took over the world through questionable (some argue illegal) business practices, and the end result of that was that nearly every computer sold for 15 years had a "Microsoft tax" added. Yup, exactly the same.
As I said, I can avoid doing business with Amazon just fine, whether I'm buying fidget spinners or a place to put a VM. I had no such option with the Microsoft of old.
When Microsoft was declared abusing its monopoly status, you could buy 100 different OSes from different vendors if you cared to, too.
Monopoly (abusing or not) is not about being able to buy stuff elsewhere, it's about what percentage of a market an entity has.
I'd start with "huge monopoly". Unlike computing in the 90s, I can buy anything I want online without doing business with Amazon.