isn't by definition a monopoly the highest standard of inherent quality? (unless of course there has been coercion/force/aggression)

i kinda think that google got a 100% monopoly because at the time they were the best search engine (and remained so). and as soon as someone comes along who is better, the monopoly will end (i use ddg but i'll admit it's not as good. i like some of the cool hacks and features so i'm trying to stick with it). am i wrong?

From Swatow's post - "i kinda think that google got a 100% monopoly because at the time they were the BEST search engine"

Emphasis on -best-. Compared to all the others. I.e., altavista, yahoo, ask.com, msn, lycos, infoseek, etc". Google came into the party late, and -displaced- the existing players, by offering a superior product.

Swatow stated that when PHP came on the scene it was the "only way to throw together a website easily", that it's now being displaced by other tech, but because for a time it was the only way to do it easily, it somehow had inherent quality. That would be like saying that because Archie was the first search engine, it had inherent quality.

It depends how difficult it is to displace this monopoly. Monopolies don't necessarily sustain themselves by being superior to the alternatives. Regulatory capture, vendor lock in or billions of lines of existing code are quite effective for this purpose.