Attending conferences like Google Next reveals the deep ecosystem and network effect in place, where hundreds of companies pitch services built on GCP, showcasing the extensive network of CIOs and CTOs. These executives are now utilizing multiple cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP, indicating a trend towards cloud interoperability and moving away from exclusive reliance on a single provider. The competition in cloud services leads to a pricing race for basic services like data storage, while the differentiation comes from higher-level services, better models, and more competitive pricing for running operations, affecting gross margins in varying ways.