Yes, let's make all our technologies as "fat" as possible so other people can't "capture" and "re-aggregate" our "value". The VC-oriented approach to protocol design!
What’s significant about this dynamic is the effect it has on how value is distributed along the stack: the market cap of the protocol always grows faster than the combined value of the applications built on top, since the success of the application layer drives further speculation at the protocol layer.
That also goes the other way: failure at the application level can bring the token value down as speculators sell, and a lowering token value affects all applications.
What’s significant about this dynamic is the effect it has on how value is distributed along the stack: the market cap of the protocol always grows faster than the combined value of the applications built on top, since the success of the application layer drives further speculation at the protocol layer.
That also goes the other way: failure at the application level can bring the token value down as speculators sell, and a lowering token value affects all applications.