> most progress

Well most progress in computing, software and related areas did come from private companies.

> True free market competition creates monopolies and

That’s where regulation must come in. To stop monopolies from forming or at least from abusing their position.

Anyway your suggestion is to jump straight to the monopoly phase?

There is an uncomfortable truth to reconcile with in that the vast majority of technological progress in private companies has come from monopolistic ones.

True, yet those major tech companies are still incentivized to make good products to some extent if they want to remain monopolies longterm. Just look at Intel..

If you have the government forcing everyone to buy your products regardless of their quality you have no such incentives.

The Internet came from the military originally, the Web came from CERN, many advances in programming languages (like automatic garbage collection) came from academia, and so on. Your claim about where most progress came from isn't obviously true.

And to the extent that it might be true, to what extent is that just structural? In a society with a focus on free markets, more will come from free markets, naturally.

> Internet came from the military originally, the Web came from CERN,

That’s certainly true, yet 90-99% (exact percentage is debatable) of progress came from non government funded organizations.

> extent is that just structural

Generally human behavior is driven by competition. That applies to individuals (e.g. scientists) even if they work in the public sector. Large government organizations or monopolies have no such incentives.