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Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

That is in theory where the government steps in. It’s exactly why standard oil was broken up. Selling at a loss to try to create a monopoly completely breaks capitalism.

I invite the folks downvoting to explain how capitalism works with a market monopoly. Since pointing out government exists to prevent just such a situation is apparently an unpopular opinion.

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In theory the company selling at a loss goes bankrupt and the people lending them money to burn lose all their money.

However post-2008 world is one where (1) the government will probably step in and rescue the people who were lending the money and (2) there are lunatic low-interest policies that encourage lending to anyone with a pulse over all forms of sane weighing up of risk.

So why not fund businesses that burn money? The problem in the story isn't antitrust, it is low interest rate policies that excessively favour borrow-and-spend tactics.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. I guess a lot of HN voters are against the idea of regulation that would prevent a lot of startups from gaining traction ("why can't I sell my stuff at a loss to get new customers?"). In reality, regulation extending anti-dumping laws to startup-type products/services is a possible solution to this issue, it's just one that would be difficult to implement and enforce. Ex. where do you draw the line on dumping vs. acceptable marketing and how do you calculate it for something like SaaS that usually has really high margins?

I suspect a lot of down voters have got their nosed wedged firmly in the "VC backed attempt at a monopoly" business model money/equity trough...

This only applies if it’s anti-competitive, meaning if the intent is to undercut and harm a competing business. Funded startups routinely operate at losses, the point is that for many business models it isn’t possible to operate profitably from the start-making alternative ownership structures challenging.

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