I don’t think it’s fair, just like I don’t think Standard Oil could have pulled off a “We’re in competition with millions of people’s feet” and millions of horses.
Tangential thought that this reminded me of - I remember reading that when Rockefeller started Standard Oil, the total market for refined oil products was tiny, and the reason it was called "Standard Oil" was because it was so hard to find reliable refined oil products with consistent chemical qualities, and that the introduction of more standardized products contributed to the demand exploding. Within a few decades, the market for oil products was a few orders of magnitude larger than it was when Standard Oil began.
By 1890, even though Standard Oil sold like 90% of the oil in the US, the size of the market not controlled by Standard Oil was bigger than the total market when Standard Oil started (or close). So, in a sense, Standard Oil could have plausibly said they were in a competition with feet and horses? If they disappeared entirely, the market would have been the same size it was before they existed. Obviously the demand for oil would have gone up dramatically anyway without Standard Oil's anti-competitive practices, but it doesn't seem exactly right to treat Standard Oil as taking a slice of a fixed pie when the pie grew so much during it's existence...
By 1890, even though Standard Oil sold like 90% of the oil in the US, the size of the market not controlled by Standard Oil was bigger than the total market when Standard Oil started (or close). So, in a sense, Standard Oil could have plausibly said they were in a competition with feet and horses? If they disappeared entirely, the market would have been the same size it was before they existed. Obviously the demand for oil would have gone up dramatically anyway without Standard Oil's anti-competitive practices, but it doesn't seem exactly right to treat Standard Oil as taking a slice of a fixed pie when the pie grew so much during it's existence...
Here's a chart of US oil production - https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...
Standard Oil was started in 1870.