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Comment by paulryanrogers | Hacker News Reader

Railroads and the like could have just not sold to the oil men. Or consumers could've just not bought from Standard Oil. ... Until they couldn't.

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This is a bad example and a common misconception. Standard Oil was an efficiency monopoly. It was a tremendous boon to consumers:

Instead of buying oil from jobbers, they made the jobbers’ profit by sending their own purchasing men into the oil region. In addition, they made their own sulfuric acid, their own barrels, their own lumber, their own wagons, and their own glue. They kept minute and accurate records of every item from rivets to barrel bungs. They built elaborate storage facilities near their refineries. Rockefeller bargained as shrewdly for crude as anyone before or since. And Sam Andrews coaxed more kerosene from a barrel of crude than could the competition. In addition, the Rockefeller firm put out the cleanest-burning kerosene, and managed to dispose of most of the residues like lubricating oil, paraffin, and vaseline at a profit.

Between 1870 and 1885 the price of refined kerosene dropped from 26 cents to 8 cents per gallon. In the same period, the Standard Oil Company reduced the [refining] costs per gallon from almost 3 cents in 1870 to 0.452 cents in 1885. Clearly, the firm was relatively efficient, and its efficiency was being translated to the consumer in the form of lower prices for a much improved product, and to the firm in the form of additional profits.

https://fee.org/articles/41-rockefellers-standard-oil-compan...

It is difficult to overstate how much Standard Oil revolutionized the oil refinement process, resulting in oil that was significantly cleaner and cheaper than its competitors’.

> Standard Oil

Sounds like the government should and did step in at the "until they couldn't" part, which is not where we're at. Hard to imagine someone unable to stop using Facebook or Instagram or whatever, there's a lot of social media out there.

> Railroads

Considering the US returned control of the railways to their original owners in 1920 and most rail today is privatized, I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

Consumers and competing businesses were still harmed during Standard Oil's rise. Why wait until there are no practical alternatives left?

Other businesses are always harmed during the rise of a dominant business, that's what happens when a dominant business takes marketshare away from you. The question at hand is whether they took their share unfairly. In Standard Oil's case, the government found that they did, which maybe happened too late in Standard Oil's case.

But even though it takes time to determine wrongdoing, we still prosecute crimes after they happen instead of before for obvious reasons. You wait until there is evidence of harm to consumers. Maybe the government has evidence, this is just an early article after all, but again, it's hard to imagine someone unable to stop using Facebook or Instagram or whatever, there's a lot of social media out there.

Where to draw the line is the controversy. Consumer harm isn't always obvious or easily reversible given corporate adversaries with more resources than mid-sized countries.

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