Standard Oil never had an absolute monopoly. Look me in the eyes and tell me they don’t count.
Argumentum ad Webster is a fallacy. Words mean what they are used to mean, and what they are understood to mean. The goddang FTC has a page explaining: “Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct.” The kind of monopoly we break up still has competition. It’s only about market share and power.
When a company dominates any industry, they obviously have power that could easily be abused, even if they do not abuse it. Do you understand that the potential for abuse is a problem, even if it’s a different kind of problem than abuse occurring? You can’t prevent things by waiting until they happen.
Was that Walmart exploiting it’s market share
Yes. Obviously. It was preachy corporate censorship on a scale we hardly recognize today. One company being so big means some art doesn’t get made.
Walmart’s an excellent example for how absolute monopoly is not required. Obviously there’s other supermarkets. But some companies drop entire product lines if Walmart doesn’t pick them up. This one store represents enough of the market that any investment is immediately considered a loss. Being in or out is such a big fucking deal that products are tailored to that store, rather than to customers.
Again, what should we do about that?
Practically speaking? Nothing, because this monopoly has not abused its power. They don’t seem likely to. And yet: it’s still there. Things change. Shit happens. If Gabe’s yacht sinks and Larry Ellison buys the company, maybe everyone decides EGS ain’t so bad, but there’s a world of lesser horrors that wouldn’t spook the herd.
Standard Oil never had an absolute monopoly. Look me in the eyes and tell me they don’t count.
Argumentum ad Webster is a fallacy. Words mean what they are used to mean, and what they are understood to mean. The goddang FTC has a page explaining: “Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct.” The kind of monopoly we break up still has competition. It’s only about market share and power.
When a company dominates any industry, they obviously have power that could easily be abused, even if they do not abuse it. Do you understand that the potential for abuse is a problem, even if it’s a different kind of problem than abuse occurring? You can’t prevent things by waiting until they happen.
Yes. Obviously. It was preachy corporate censorship on a scale we hardly recognize today. One company being so big means some art doesn’t get made.
Walmart’s an excellent example for how absolute monopoly is not required. Obviously there’s other supermarkets. But some companies drop entire product lines if Walmart doesn’t pick them up. This one store represents enough of the market that any investment is immediately considered a loss. Being in or out is such a big fucking deal that products are tailored to that store, rather than to customers.
Practically speaking? Nothing, because this monopoly has not abused its power. They don’t seem likely to. And yet: it’s still there. Things change. Shit happens. If Gabe’s yacht sinks and Larry Ellison buys the company, maybe everyone decides EGS ain’t so bad, but there’s a world of lesser horrors that wouldn’t spook the herd.