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Comment by naasking | Hacker News Reader

> Thiel's book has influenced so many entrepreneurs into believing Monopolies are Good.

Haven't read his book, but the idea that monopolies are good isn't typically made in a vacuum, it's made relative to alternatives, most often "ham-fisted government intervention". It's easier to take down a badly behaving monopoly than to change government, so believing monopolies are better than the alternatives seems like a decent heuristic.

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>Haven't read his book, but the idea that monopolies are good isn't typically made in a vacuum, it's made relative to alternatives, most often "ham-fisted government intervention". It's easier to take down a badly behaving monopoly than to change government, so believing monopolies are better than the alternatives seems like a decent heuristic.

What? How is the first alternative poor government instead of multipolar competing companies? When was the last time a Monopoly was actually broken up in the US? ATT/Bell 50 years ago? lol

How would a bad monopoly be likely to be taken down if not by government intervention?

It eventually becomes so big and inefficient that it gets overtaken by new competitors.

A Monopoly implies an organization powerful enough to stop competition. Seems like this solution that relies on competitors is fatally flawed. If there are enough competitors to meaningfully compete then there isn't a monopoly.

You can only truly stop competition by government intervention.

When an organization gets big enough it is indistinguishable from government.

No organization can ever rival a real government like the US due to the latter's monopolization on the use of force.

Unfortunately there isn't also a requirement on not being a complete idotic psycho.

Monoply on force is meaningless, if you shoot your head off with it, which is what is happening with the US atm...

Criminally stupid is the trump all card, pun intended.

Insert better horse/car analogy here

A monopoly comes with serious moats, otherwise it wouldn’t be one. It can stay big and inefficient for decades.

Not if they hire good to go and literally kill the competition.

Open source vs. Microsoft is a great example.

Good for whom, exactly?

This seems like a classic straw man argument. Plutocratic oligarchs have been making the argument that private monopolies are better than representative democracy at basically any societal function for decades without any actual data.

This seems like a classic straw man argument. Plutocratic oligarchs have been making the argument that private monopolies are better than representative democracy at basically anything for decades.

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