Vertical AI is the third path.

If consumer gets absorbed by incumbents and enterprise consolidates around model companies, the independents that survive are the ones building both a consumer surface and an infrastructure layer.

This connects to last week's note on vertical AI compressing the B2C-to-infrastructure arc. Build the consumer habit. Expose the intelligence as APIs. If distribution concentrates, you're the vertical brain that gets called. If it fragments, you own the daily habit directly.

The test: is the intelligence core compounding across both surfaces, or are you running two products under one roof? The former is a control plane. The latter is overhead.