[rgbrenner]

Doesn't all technology eventually become commoditized? At the latest, after the patents expire.

I think every piece of tech ever invented is either commoditized or is on a path to become so.

I think it would be more productive to see if anyone can name a tech that isn't commoditized and isn't likely to in the future.

[rm999]

There's some discussion of companies that hold monopolies in free markets here: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/04/18/for-monopol.... Basically, small companies with strong brands in slow-growing, niche industries. There's nothing really assuring their monopoly except that it's not worth trying to compete with them.

Regarding tech, the best example I can think of is TI and graphing calculators. They don't have a monopoly but they have a strong grasp on a niche industry - it's far from commoditized. I'm sure a company could create a clone, but I don't know if it would be worth the effort for such a small amount of revenue.

[sokoloff]

Nuclear power. Most things military. Many things aerospace.

[bediger4000]

You could make an argument that those things aren't bought and sold in a free market. Passenger planes and general aviation planes are at least semi-commoditized, but fighters, bombers, spy planes, missiles are all built for basically one buyer, the US DoD. The DoD decides which firms succeed and which fail, essentially. The "market" for nuclear power plants is so regulated as to prevent it from being "free" except to someone whose job depends on that market being "free".

[jsprogrammer]

Considering the huge risk someone would be putting many others in by attempting to construct and run a fission facility, I'm not sure anyone should be "free" to do so.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

What's your definition of "free?"

I'm possibly free to construct and run a fission facility, but I still have to follow the relevant regulations at all steps of the process.

[CamperBob2]

But a coal plant spewing radioactive by-products into the air is perfectly kosher, amirite?

[jsprogrammer]

No, I believe you are wrong.

[CamperBob2]

Good, because it sure sounds wrong to me. Otherwise, I'd have to believe that radioactive pollution is only a problem when it looks bad on CNN.

[petra]

I wouldn't call the market for general aviation semi commoditized. Even the state of is working hard to create a decent competitor.

[enkiv2]

Dead media is not (or rather, is no longer) commoditized. (By dead media I don't mean something that is vaguely less popular than something newer but is still produced, like newspapers, but instead something that has been superceded entirely, like Qipu or the radio-iconoscope.)