[ergothus]

> That says it all.

Does it? Competition and survivorship have long been accepted as the premise of capitalism. What I find more disturbing is that we've been told competition will be to the benefit of the consumer, and this focus on network effects means that companies are looking for a way to stay on top WITHOUT the virtue of providing the best benefit.

This leads to Comcast-like situations, with customers that hate their provider but want the product and have no real options. Or Facebook, where people can join get disgusted and join an alternative...that can't provide the desired service because the desired service requires that everyone else be there.

[WalterBright]

Comcast's dominance is propped up by regulatory capture, not free market capitalism.

[ergothus]

So substitute Amazon, Facebook, or any of the companies that people have many complaints with, yet continue to funnel their business to because competitors can't match the network effects.

[WalterBright]

The last I checked, using Google search is free. What do you think would happen if they started charging for it?

[ergothus]

I'm not sure how citing a single example counters my point, but I'll bite: Searchers aren't the customers of Google, and we have no shortage of stories on HN about Google abusing or potentially abusing their monopoly.

To return to my point: healthy market competition involves providing value for the consumer. In a healthy market there are low profit margins because high profit margins indicate a change for competition to enter and undercut. Companies competing and failing or falling to competition are not (necessarily) a sign of problem, as an above poster seemed to be saying.

However, companies seeking to find ways to prevent competition or deny it via network effects ARE a sign of an unhealthy market. And companies (as cited by the article and most of the tech-buzz-startup scene) are all about trying to grab that advantage and hold it. Logically the consumer is the one that ultimately suffers, per the very premise of healthy market competition.

[Animats]

I can see the day coming when the "sign in" button on "google.com" is a popup, instead of a little box in the upper right. Maybe you can still bypass it, but a dark pattern suggests strongly that you must log in to search.

[WalterSear]

The difference is debatable.

[WalterBright]

Not really. Using the government to make your competition illegal is not free market.

[WalterSear]

There is no free market mechanism that can prevent the sale of the market.

[WalterBright]

That's the government's job. The government fails at it now and then, which is why the citizens need to vigilant and careful in whom they elect.

Do you believe that if the government ran the economy (socialism) there would be no corruption?

[WalterSear]

I don't believe in strawmen.