So, is google not a monopoly because there are other search engines out there?
It isn’t. There are other search engines. People use Google because it’s the best, not because it’s the only one available. If Google became a horrible search engine, people would switch no problem
Does Apple not have a monopoly among US teenagers because there are Android phones available?
Yes. Although Apple is preferred in this public (of which I don’t know a lot about, so I won’t try to guess why), Android is always an option. And a cheaper one, usually. This forces Apple to differentiate themselves by giving the best in what their users want (premium quality and status, I guess).
Does Microsoft not have a monopoly in desktop computing because Apple and Linux exist or because phones exist?
Same point.
What is your definition of monopoly and how does Github not fit it?
A monopoly is when a company is the only one in a market niche. Not the most prominent one.
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I don’t think there’s a precise name for that, since it can be a lot of complex things. A monopoly is a very defined thing, that was my point.
A company can be prominent because it is just better at giving what the consumers want. That’s the case of Google (as a search engine). I use Duck Duck Go, but very often I have to fallback to Google because DDG’s results are just not quite right.
It can be prominent because what it does is very expensive and so only a few can even try it. That’s again the case with Google. Creating a good search engine is hard, and Google just got more money to throw at it. That’s also the case of Apple. What they are selling (premium products with very high quality and stability) is inherently expensive, and such they don’t face a lot of competition (Sansung I guess). Many big corp will lobby the government to artificially make the market more expensive so they can rule out small fish (don’t quote me on that, I’ll not elaborate further).
A company can also turn itself into a conglomerate, merging, buying and assimilating other companies. That’s the case with AbInbev here in Brazil. They assimilated most of the beer companies. It is very hard (in my opinion impossible) for this to turn into a monopoly, because there will be other big fish trying to play the same game (Petrópolis and Heineken in this case, for example), and there will always be those companies that will not accept being bought, hoping they will be the next big fish.
I’m not making any judgement of value here, I hate big corporations, but I think we should put blame where blame is due, and not attack straw men and use water down terms, because that’s pretty weak.
It isn’t. There are other search engines. People use Google because it’s the best, not because it’s the only one available. If Google became a horrible search engine, people would switch no problem
Yes. Although Apple is preferred in this public (of which I don’t know a lot about, so I won’t try to guess why), Android is always an option. And a cheaper one, usually. This forces Apple to differentiate themselves by giving the best in what their users want (premium quality and status, I guess).
Same point.
A monopoly is when a company is the only one in a market niche. Not the most prominent one.
What would you call the latter then?
Anti Commercial AI thingy
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Inserted with a keystroke running this script on linux with X11
#!/usr/bin/env nix-shell #!nix-shell -i bash --packages xautomation xclip sleep 0.2 (echo '::: spoiler Anti Commercial AI thingy [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) Inserted with a keystroke running this script on linux with X11 ```bash' cat "$0" echo '``` :::') | xclip -selection clipboard xte "keydown Control_L" "key V" "keyup Control_L"I don’t think there’s a precise name for that, since it can be a lot of complex things. A monopoly is a very defined thing, that was my point.
A company can be prominent because it is just better at giving what the consumers want. That’s the case of Google (as a search engine). I use Duck Duck Go, but very often I have to fallback to Google because DDG’s results are just not quite right.
It can be prominent because what it does is very expensive and so only a few can even try it. That’s again the case with Google. Creating a good search engine is hard, and Google just got more money to throw at it. That’s also the case of Apple. What they are selling (premium products with very high quality and stability) is inherently expensive, and such they don’t face a lot of competition (Sansung I guess). Many big corp will lobby the government to artificially make the market more expensive so they can rule out small fish (don’t quote me on that, I’ll not elaborate further).
A company can also turn itself into a conglomerate, merging, buying and assimilating other companies. That’s the case with AbInbev here in Brazil. They assimilated most of the beer companies. It is very hard (in my opinion impossible) for this to turn into a monopoly, because there will be other big fish trying to play the same game (Petrópolis and Heineken in this case, for example), and there will always be those companies that will not accept being bought, hoping they will be the next big fish.
I’m not making any judgement of value here, I hate big corporations, but I think we should put blame where blame is due, and not attack straw men and use water down terms, because that’s pretty weak.
Duopoly?