[nickpp]

Monopolies (including the so-called "natural monopolies") are not a problem for the free market, but rather opportunities - bounded only by human ingenuity, imagination and capacity to innovate.

In reality most monopolies we encountered were actually created or sustained by governments, through their dear friends patents and regulations which raise the barrier of entry and compliance costs, create unintended second-order effects and generally dampen competition.

[DSMan195276]

"Guy's you're just not doing it right" or "there would be more competition if we would just remove those pesky regulations on the meat packing industry". It's very convenient that the answer is always just "remove regulations" as though most of them weren't put in place to solve existing problems that otherwise weren't getting solved by the market itself.

I'll give you a different suggestion - what you're saying may work fine on a small scale, but not on a scale where consumers can no longer realistically have any idea how something was produced. Consumers can't select against things they don't know about or don't understand.

[nickpp]

> may work fine on a small scale, but not on a scale where [...]

"Evolution may work fine for a small organism like bacteria, but it would never evolve something as complex as the human eye"

> consumers can no longer realistically [...] Consumers can't select

Your lack of trust in consumers is only surpassed by your lack of imagination. Repeat after me: "If consumers actually need something, a free market will provide".

Too much choice and quality too hard to check? Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, Trip Advisor and any other aggregator with reviews like Booking.com or even Amazon will help. Food not killing me instantly (thanks, regulation!) but sickening me slowly with production-boosting chemicals (for nothing...)? We now have organically grown, local co-ops and various near-sourced grass-fed ethically slaughtered meats.

No regulation to thank to, just the good old free markets.

[DarylZero]

Markets are also created and sustained by governments.

[nickpp]

Nope. Markets require just a couple of free participants willing to exchange goods or services. No governmental involvement there.

[DarylZero]

"Markets are" <-- actual existence

vs.

"Markets require" <-- some kind of logical construction