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Comment by tomnipotent | Hacker News Reader

Did you to read the article which mentions all the competitors that are available?

The simple existence of competitors in a market segment is not proof that there is no monopoly. We wouldn't say for example that there are realistic copetitors in the web search space or in the desktop OS space - maps is similar to both of these sitations. (Now I realise that some people like to argue the toss about whether search and desktop OS are monopolies and to that I have no comment)

It's helpful to think about market share per "competitor", not number of competitors:

"However, from a regulatory view, monopoly power exists when a single firm controls 25% or more of a particular market. For example, De Beers is known to have a monopoly in the diamond industry."

https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/monopoly-market-structu...

The search space has bing and to a lesser extent duckduckgo

The wording was a bit confusing, but I think the GP meant that Google _thinks_ they have no competition so can get away with sudden price gouging.

Since API's aren't standardized and conversion from one product to another likely requires development work and probably impacts your usage in some way even then - the barriers to switching are high enough that the availability of alternative maps still doesn't represent a whole lot of competition.

A good competitor can make a drop in replacement possible by aligning their api with that of google's

look how good it went for Microsoft's competitors trying to build a Win32-compatible OS....

Look what Linus and Stallman made to replace UNIX.

What? Like WINE you mean? ;-)

This argument is symmetric, it implies all other map providers (who are competitors of google maps and of each other) also have no competitors.

Sure, typically yes. It's not necessary - interoperable APIs exist, and for underdogs they're even attractive as a selling point - but market leaders tend not to play by those rules.

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