I like drawing parallels between economics and ecology... monopolies are farms, massive artificial monocultures that suppress natural competition and extract value for the profit of a few. They embody a cycle of growth and stagnation.

A healthy economy is more like a jungle, innumerable smaller competitors with diverse approaches to survival... an extremely resilient and constantly evolving ecosystem that leads to fascinating innovation.

I think you missed PT's point. The word "monopoly" has overshadowed his message. He wants people to pursue "blue ocean"[1] ideas to be innovative.

Instead of starting a company that makes another generic clone of aspirin, you pursue a drug that cures breast cancer. Or instead of building a business that broadcasts 150 characters (hey we offer you +10 more characters than Twitter), do something more innovative for society like building cheap flying cars.

I'd venture to guess that 99% actually agree with PT's underlying idea (innovation) but the distasteful word "monopoly" has completely drowned out the message. The term "blue ocean" is the same concept -- it just doesn't rile people up as much.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy

What you're describing is a jungle. Niches with dominant players that share in a diverse resilient economy. Bees and hummingbirds compete for the same resources but they are not copycats.

A monopoly is a farm, an established entity that's taken control of the local system to suppress disrupters.

That's the part I was replying to. When you say "I agree" with parent post that disagreed that "[monopoly] is also good for society as a whole."

>A monopoly is a farm,...

I wasn't replying to this alternative analogy. I think we both agree that PT wasn't using "monopoly" in this manner. His usage of "monopoly" was closer to your "jungle" ecosystem. My point was that you may actually not be disagreeing with PT.

Theranos had promises of "blue ocean". No competition. This attracted investors like moths to a flame. (We now know they had no competitors because their technology was a fraud.) The investors would have been better off investing in a boring factory making generic aspirin ("red oceans of bloody competition").

Uber should be a case study that burning up billions in investor money (billions wasted on trying to underprice Didi in China) was a colossal mistake. How much of that bad strategy is blamed on Travis's vs investors is something we won't know until a tell-all book comes out.