Re:The antitrust case against Google
by peterwoerner on Thursday June 11, 2020 @10:43PM
(#23495474)
Peter Thiel said you can tell if a company is a monopoly by the way they talk about themselves:
“Anyone that has a monopoly will pretend that they're in incredible competition. If you're a non-monopolist, you will rhetorically describe your market as super small, you're the only person in that market.If you have a monopoly, you will describe it as super big, and there is lots of competition in it"
This has been a point of contention all the time. Regulators want to shrink the market size as much as possible, and companies want to expand it as much as possible. This is not a way to determine monopoly.
Re:The antitrust case against Google
by peterwoerner on Friday June 12, 2020 @01:07PM
(#23501321)
The quote was referring to the way the company describes themselves in e.g. 10Q briefings.
The only monopoly is the government granted monopoly, ma bell was one.
So if Verizon manages to, through mergers and acquisitions and like, get a 100% market share in the US, it would still not be a monopoly, because it is not government granted?
In Verizon's specific case it would be a government granted monopoly either way. Between infrastructure easements to wireless spectrum to state laws banning municipal competition, that industry is government granted through and through.
Of course not. If you don't like paying the monopoly prices, you can just, uh... you can just start your own backyard wireless telecommunications service provider.
And inversely, if you cut any industry coarsely enough, you will never find any monopolies.
"Don't break us up! Sure, we may own the entire telephone service, but we do not have a monopoly. See, you should be looking at total human communications. People talk in person, send letters, etc. We own a teeny tiny slice of total human communications."
"Don't break us up! Sure, we may own the entire rail network, but we do not have a monopoly. See, you should be looking at entire human travel. People walk, ride horses, travel by ships, etc. We own a teeny tiny slice of total travel industry."