Or because you seem to believe you can opt out of anything. Try lasting too long in many industries without a cell phone number. Oops, it's a natural monopoly. Try opting out of buying a car when you don't agree with the policies of any auto manufacturer. Can you even understand a product's supply chain to see if there aren't companies there that you vehemently disagree with?
What about your peers? If you work in most industries there's always a push towards standardized solutions. Try forcing a company to use all open source software and see how far that gets you.
We haven't even gotten to the point where a large corporation has enough power to break or make small towns due to the capital they bring in. They have them by the balls.
No, your statement has no factual basis whatsoever.
The mining companies, however, refused to meet the demands of the workers and instead hired Baldwin-Felts Agents, equipped with high-powered rifles, to guard the mines, but more important to be strikebreakers.[2][1] After the Agents arrived, the miners either moved out or were evicted from the houses they had been renting from the coal companies, moving into coal camps that were being supported by the Union.[1] Approximately 35,000 people lived in these coal camps.[1] It wasn't until a month after the strike began that it became hostile with the arrival of the Baldwin-Felts Agents who provoked the miners.[1]
The latter does not imply the former. A monopoly is defined as _a single big player_. That's what the mono means, one! Like in monorail or monotone. If there are "a few big players", that is by definition an oligopoly, not a monopoly. This is _really_ basic English.
That's both incredibly condescending and wrong. "One mega company owning every industry in the world" is not the only way to have a monopoly.
You can have monopolies on specific industries or in specific regions (e.g. AT&T and Comcast split up towns in a state and each one is the only provider in that town).
So was the parent's statement of "This is really basic" when they hadn't provided any evidence or even a clear claim (did they mean a few big players controlling each market, as in the fuel market, apple market, etc., or a few big players controlling a market as in the American market, European market etc).
Look up "truck system", for example.
What? A big corp can't hire a couple of goons?