> For example, if English were said to have a monopoly on language, it would become very easy to speak and communicate around the world, as it would be the only language spoken everywhere. Contrast, if we have 200 versions of spoken languages, we'd have communication barriers to overcome when we try to communicate with someone foreign.
You don't need a monopoly to do this because people can be bilingual. English is the de facto language of international websites on the internet, so people in Spain who speak Spanish and English and people in Russia who speak Russian and English go to Twitter or Reddit and talk to each other in English.
The same is true of internet standards. Everybody uses TCP/IP. Everybody. But nobody has a monopoly on it and nobody is prohibiting anyone from using a competitor out of anything other than network effect. If IPv8 turns out to be super amazing and has many advantages that overcome the inertia of IPv4, everyone could switch. Which is the thing you don't get with a corporate monopoly.