Why is hosting still dominated by cPanel / Plesk?

The hosting industry has been heavily centered around cPanel and Plesk for a long time.

From one perspective, this looks like market standardization. From another, it raises a different question:

- Why haven’t alternatives reached similar adoption?

- Is it truly technical superiority, or ecosystem lock-in?

- Why has innovation in hosting control panels been so slow?

From what I’ve observed, the limitation is not only UI or features, but deeper architectural assumptions and dependency structures across the ecosystem.

I’m exploring a different direction with an isolation-first approach (ICA-style architecture), but I’m curious about the broader perspective:

Is this simply natural consolidation around standards, or does it reflect an innovation bottleneck in hosting infrastructure?