[wfo]

Private monopolies are in some theoretical circumstances unproblematic because according to extremist free-market ideologues they are destroyed by more effective competitors. In reality they are broken up by governments, regulated into the ground, or destroy a nation/society, and they manage to make a society/market a whole lot worse before this long-term and extreme regulatory action obliterates them and fixes the problem.

[danielweber]

How is "ride-sharing" any kind of natural monopoly? Uber can't lock in either drivers or riders.

They have to consistently provide a good experience for both drier and riders, who can switch literally by opening a different app on their phone.

Uber probably had the market strength to contractually demand that you couldn't be on the Lyft network while on the Uber network. If they had done that, they would have lock-in effects. Maybe they didn't because they were afraid of monopoly accusations.

[puranjay]

> they manage to make a society/market a whole lot worse

I can imagine this argument holding true for resource-based businesses, say, oil and gas. I can't imagine a taxi services aggregator having that substantial an impact on a nation

[wfo]

You're right the argument is less strong for a non-natural monopoly, but Microsoft, say, when they had a monopoly, held back computing by years and we're still seeing the aftereffects of their monopoly; it has warped an entire industry in not only the US but the world.