[shamsalmon]

This is a libertarian fantasy. Large companies can stay solvent by undercutting smaller companies and killing their business. This is what would happen if we were to remove regulations and restrictions. You wouldn't end up with a perfect competition utopia you end up with a dystopian garbage reality where the business elite control even more than they already do.

[nickpp]

And yet we are having this conversation on a site dedicated to this "libertarian fantasy", with countless examples of startups disrupting large, existing companies.

Reality contradicts your "dystopia".

[oarsinsync]

> This is what would happen if we were to remove regulations and restrictions. You wouldn't end up with a perfect competition utopia you end up with a dystopian garbage reality where the business elite control even more than they already do.

Reality has a number of regulations and restrictions. The dystopia GP describes is a world without these regulations and restrictions, not the reality we inhabit today.

[nickpp]

Funny enough, startups and competition thrive exactly in those pockets of reality with less restrictions and regulations, while large companies and monopolies rule the heavily regulated markets.

[shamsalmon]

Large companies rule every market. Startups thrive in niches, not pockets with less restrictions and regulations. Once a market is established it becomes incredibly hard for new companies to enter and compete not matter the regulations as larger companies can take advantage of scale.

Perfect competition exists almost no where, and you should read up on the conditions when it is allowed to take place. Regulations are part of the equation, but not nearly all of it.

[nickpp]

Large companies ARE startups who became successful. Until they are dethroned in turn by other startups.

Large companies are relatively easy to disrupt, since they usually respond slowly to market changes and they are much less efficient than a lean startup. The "advantages of scale" you are so fixated on are just a small part of the whole picture and what large corps gain at scale, they lose at management costs and through lack of innovation

It is a natural process, with countless examples all around us. A healthy process too, since it promotes competition and innovation.

But this process is interrupted by regulation. Regulation protects the incumbents, that is why large companies love it. They'd rather regulate than innovate. Indeed, when startups aren’t allowed to compete (by governments) large companies dominate and the market stagnates.