memes

Is that why Edge, Facebook, AT&T, Bing, gmail, Tesla, and a hundered other examples are still around even though they are objectively bad products compared to competitors?

Or is it that multi-billion dollar companies subsidize them because they have near monopolies on the space through exploitation and shady business practices including being publically subsidized loss leaders until they got a stranglehold on the market?

The natural steady state of the "free market" is monopoly. Look at the computer hardware and tech world, and the internet. The closest we have had to a completely free market in a long time. There were practically 0 rules and regulations around them for dozens of years. What happened? Companies all bought each other until there are oligopolies or monopolies in each market, without exception.