The natural/artificial barrier is the data silo created by the fitness tracking. Monopoly isn't necessarily the right word, but it is rather frustrating that all these smartwatches by default beam all of your biometrics into a non-hippa-compliant datastore, and that these datastores don't interoperate.
It's really tricky because right now Garmin, Fitbit, Apple, and the others are all basically financing their data portals through device sales. Which makes sense because I wouldn't have paid a subscription for it before I bought the watch, but now that I have the watch (Garmin) it is an invaluable service. But it seems wrong that the watch manufacturer owns the data - I would like a data storage company with strong privacy guarantees and strong analytics. But I'm not sure I trust any of these companies, it seems like they're all trying to figure out how to monetize my data by selling analytics to third-parties. (Even Apple.)
The user data is valuable, it could even create some degree of individual user lock-in. Lock-in becomes barrier to entry as the market becomes saturated. I’m not sure how many people feel that strongly about keeping long-term historical fitness data.
If the data creates powerful network effects in a way that results in a winner-take-all effect then in theory a monopoly could emerge even before market saturation. Is there a strong case for that?
App developers will want to create apps for devices that are popular, so that is an effect. Eventually enough apps could potentially create a barrier to entry, if “volume of apps” is the buying criteria.
But often the volume of apps is pretty irrelevant. Show a user a compelling experience with 10 mind-blowing apps and you can still compete against an App Store filled largely with trash.
In the end it’s a couple hundred dollar device you put on your wrist. There may be extremely compelling products that have large market share, but I’m just not seeing how that can become a monopoly.
It's really tricky because right now Garmin, Fitbit, Apple, and the others are all basically financing their data portals through device sales. Which makes sense because I wouldn't have paid a subscription for it before I bought the watch, but now that I have the watch (Garmin) it is an invaluable service. But it seems wrong that the watch manufacturer owns the data - I would like a data storage company with strong privacy guarantees and strong analytics. But I'm not sure I trust any of these companies, it seems like they're all trying to figure out how to monetize my data by selling analytics to third-parties. (Even Apple.)