The End of Open APIs: How AI-Powered Incumbents Are Building Competitive Moats

Major software incumbents like Salesforce, Datadog, and Epic are restricting API access and data portability to defend against competition, marking a shift from two decades of open platform ecosystems. AI's acceleration of development cycles enables large players to build end-to-end solutions faster, making platform-dependent businesses riskier than before. This represents a structural change in software industry dynamics where owning full stacks becomes the competitive advantage.