[lovich]

All of those alternatives together don't even provide a fraction of the service that google provides.

The monopoly takes control and keeps prices higher than they would be with competition. New competition comes along every now and then but a monopoly just has to compete heavily for a short time to put the new comes out of business and then it's back to mining the market. This is how monopolies work and what anti trust legislature is supposed to stop.

Based on your comments here, I have to ask. Is there any situation you can think of where the government should step in to break up a company, short of violence or breaking a contract?