There’s a difference between being the dominant player in an industry and having a monopoly. Consumers overwhelmingly prefer Google because it’s the best search engine, period. The second that changes, users will switch to something else.

Remember that AOL, Yahoo, and MySpace “monopolized” the internet not that long ago. There were hysterical articles in the mid 2000s speculating on whether or not these companies had a “cyber monopoly”. I doubt you think those companies are still the dominant players on the internet...

A fair number of HN users work for said monopoly.

Not sure if is that the case. HN sometimes likes to downvote things randomly, for no discernible reason at all.

Would be nice if they participated but refrained from voting.