Models are becoming utilities and apps get cloned in a week. I think the moat is one layer up — before you've even finished the thought.
The whole industry is grinding on one thing right now: making AI answer better. Bigger models, sharper prompts, another wrapper app every week.
The more I build, the more convinced I am that the valuable part isn't on the answer side at all.
Look at the two layers everyone's fighting over. The model layer is turning into a utility — you rent it by the token, and everyone rents the same thing. The app layer is a cloning race: one feature takes off, and someone ships a copy within the week. Long term, neither layer is defensible. You can't build a moat out of something everyone can rent, or something anyone can copy.
So where does a moat actually fit?
