Hacker News Reader

> Without those the argument goes, that firms would never get so big because competition would sprout up immediately to cut into their market dominance.

That's how the argument goes, but this is neither a proof nor an observation--just a piece of economic theory, and there are others going against it.

View on HN

Yes well, I don't think anyone would argue that success breeds competition. Just look at the "hoverboard" market, or any product for that matter, for proof of that.

This does not mean the competition will always, necessarily be strong enough to prevent the formation of a monopoly.

If there is a competitor then there is no Monopoly. It's not just a semantic exercise.

Note that anti-trust actions, like what happened with MSFT, typically are executed long before a monopoly is established.

In an unregulated market, just because you want to compete doesn't mean you'll succeed. Without the regulatory framework to protect upstarts, a monopolist can just allocate X% of its budget to the task of "killing competitors" (maybe even literally) and they will be much more effective at it than in the world where laws limit their options.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com