I'm always slightly amused when buzzwords are thrown around vaguely such as "network effect" and "lock in". Those are not entirely a matter of a better sales pitch or bandwagoning. They're about the actual product.
> they will lose to thousands of tiny teams that outship them and beat them on cost
They won't, but this is the actual reason. Nobody likes dealing with support or maintenance, and having to reach out to tiny teams is death by a million papercuts for the end user too. The established players such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, etc. have a mature product that justifies the 7-figure contract price, and there are always lower tiers of the same product for those who are that price sensitive.
