These companies are all racing to dominate the market. Eventually one will win, largely through government contracts. Then all the infrastructure will be used to further propagandize, kill and spy on us.

The company benefits by convincing investors that it's still growing and innovating. If investors think they are still growing their stock prices go up. If their stock prices go up then they can use their stock as an asset to borrow against or as a form of payment in lieu of cash. Stock is particularly useful to a company as a medium of exchange because they can just make more. But they can only do that without tanking the value if people are buying, and they can only keep people buying if they think the price will go up, and the only thing the price will go up if they think the company is going to become more profitable in the future.

This is basically Cory Doctrow's argument in his latest book.

Fossil fuel companies. Waha natural gas prices are super depressed in that area so it would be a big boon to the pricing environment there.