The Netflix Playbook for When Your AI Provider Becomes Your Competitor

Windsurf lost Claude access with 5 days' notice. Your AI tool could vanish tomorrow. Here's the Netflix playbook that works: multiple providers, protected IP, and tested escape routes.

Hi there,

Today, I’m going to share some research and analysis on what we could call the ecosystem wars - where competitors are also clients and clients are also competitors.

Netflix pays AWS a substantial amount for cloud services each month, competing with Prime Video. Every episode you watch indirectly supports AWS's cloud revenue. Netflix knows these funds support their competitor, yet they continue paying because building their own global infrastructure would cost billions more.

You're facing the same situation with AI. If you're using ChatGPT, OpenAI might eventually compete with you. Building on Claude means Anthropic can see which markets are growing through usage patterns. Google has a long history of entering profitable markets they've observed through their platforms, from the EU Google Shopping case to launching Google Flights after acquiring ITA Software.

This isn't about data theft, since OpenAI and Anthropic don't train on business customer data by default. This is about de…