That’s not a particularly convincing argument - it’s like saying that Sony has a monopoly in the PlayStation market - possibly true, but not that useful!
Exactly: you can absolutely always define a market here a company has a close-to-100% market share.
That's why, to actually talk about a monopoly, you need to very precisely define the market.
Take Facebook: Facebook has a monopoly in online, blue-themed social networks owned by Harvard dropouts.
It doesn't have a monopoly on social networks, on communication, on online networks, on online ads, on online ads in social networks, on blue-themed online social networks, and even on blue-themed online social networks with a timeline feature.
> But being blue isn't a defining feature of Facebook
Indeed, nor is it a defining feature of the market. That is exactly my point: if your labe of "monopoly" relies on a non-defining feature of a market that sets it apart from other markets (meaning that there is little competition between borders), you definition of monopoly is useless.
If somebody can usefully use both commodities at once - (using facebook and twitter) I would say that those two companies aren't competing to the point where they can be called the same market.
Thats pretty reductionist - so is every newspaper, cinema, and television station. Perhaps your argument is that if a single company controlled all news, television companies and film studios, as well as several large social media properties, they would not be a monopoly - so long as some other large companies existed that competed in other ways for people's time? I mean I can see why you could draw such a conclusion, but I hope that you can also understand the other side that would suggest that a large company like that would be inherently harmful without actually deliberately leveraging its market share in anticompetetive ways.
> That’s not a particularly convincing argument - it’s like saying that Sony has a monopoly in the PlayStation market - possibly true, but not that useful!
Except for that anyone can spend 30 seconds looking up how Coca Cola abuses their monopoly position to prevent competition; Richard Branson is perpetual the case study.
That's why, to actually talk about a monopoly, you need to very precisely define the market.
Take Facebook: Facebook has a monopoly in online, blue-themed social networks owned by Harvard dropouts.
It doesn't have a monopoly on social networks, on communication, on online networks, on online ads, on online ads in social networks, on blue-themed online social networks, and even on blue-themed online social networks with a timeline feature.