[dleslie]

And then the competitors _tacitly_ collude and form an oligopoly, using their combined market power to consume small competitors and collectively reduce product quality.

The unregulated free market makes minnows of us all for the whales to feed upon.

[koheripbal]

This is obviously not true in a majority of industries

[hinkley]

Regulatory capture makes it hard for new companies to enter a field.

It's one of the main reasons there's so much hype about SpaceX.

What seems to happen is that an oligopoly makes the written and unwritten rules so complex that they injure themselves, creating a power vacuum for deregulation or just someone saying "fuck your (unwritten) rules" and either staying exactly within the confines of the letter of the laws, or leveraging their popularity into getting away with infractions. "Oops, didn't mean it!"

That we root for the underdog is in part an expression of our shared pain in the stunted progress that was made up until that point.

[falcolas]

Like the diamond industry, the oil industry, the telephone industry, the Silicon Valley software development talent industry…

[koheripbal]

You realize there are many many many more industries than the ones you listed, right?

[falcolas]

Of course. I only presented a broad _sample_ of diverse industries which had, or have, problems with monopolistic behavior. I feel that I could have continued at some length, but my time is limited.

[koheripbal]

You did not provide a random "sample". You cherry picked specific data points to construct a false narrative.