You are talking about either <i>business</i> complexity or the critical minimum amount of money that is necessary to enter and dominate a market. I am taking about the <i>engineering</i> complexity.<p>They could not be created earlier for the same reason why Hollywood could not have been created in the 17th century: there was no motion pictures technology or modern internet distribution channels. But none of that tech has to do with Hollywood.<p>The engineering complexity of Airbnb is in the ARM SOC and in the GPS constellation, but not in their app.