Comment by vegancap | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vegancap | Hacker News Reader

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Apology accepted? But I do know what I'm talking about. Monopolies in a market economy can only exist if they've had no competitors and have met all of their customers needs and defeated all competition. Google is a monopoly, because it's something we're all generally pretty happy with. Even the slightest downfalls in Google lead to competitors taking advantage of that. Say data privacy for example, Google were subpar there, so Duckduckgo gained major momentum. Market competition will almost always prevent monopolies. Monopolies occur within our current model because state regulation, state taxes (including corporate tax relief) create what's known as a 'barrier to market'. Meaning it's far, far more difficult for a competitor to actually compete on a product level.

Most of our debt's occur because interest rates are so high, and why are interest rates so high? Because they're pegged above inflation, and why do we have inflation? Because governments bide time and bribe us with free things either funded by debts they've instigates, or by printing fiat currency. Which aren't market ideals, by any definition.

I think I might go so far as to say I don't really think either of you know what you are talking about. Monopolies are created by barriers to entry into a market, this can include things like state regulation, but also things like intellectual property, and capital. Monopolies distort the market, but are not always net negative. Perhaps a good example are silicon wafer manufactures (technically an oligopoly, but the same arguments apply). Because the startup cost for silicon manufacturing is so high, and the infrastructure takes time to build, supply does not have to, and regularly does not match demand (bad). That said, the scales of economy involved with allowing a single company to produce so much silicon in this case makes that trade off well worth it.

I think it's silly when people use monopoly as a synonym for bad. Sometimes monopolies make sense.

> I think it's silly when people use monopoly as a synonym for bad. Sometimes monopolies make sense.

Theodore Roosevelt's policy on monopolies was pretty much this. Monopolies that provided good service at reasonable prices were left alone, those that abused their power were attacked.

I agree that sometimes monopolies makes sense, and that they're not all bad. So long as they're do through voluntary, customer means, then sure.

I mentioned in another response further up that, sometimes a company will provide services so well that they create a 'market satisfaction' whereby there'd by no point competing because consumers aren't looking for an alternative so there'd be little point. I think Google (before the privacy concerns were raised) were an example of that.

Formally: monopoly power is controlling 25% of a market.

No, monopoly, market, or pricing power (the the terms are equivalent in anti trust law) exists when there is a range in which an entity can increase prices without losing sales to competitors. There is no percentage of market threshold.

This definition reflects the economic concept of a monopoly in that the presence of this pricing power indicates the absence of a competitive market with perfect substitutes for the goods sold.

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