[yakak]

I think the discussion was any monopoly that serves as a cash cow to enable poor management.

For comparison, AT&T had a monopoly only on long distance, so people could choose drastically different behavior if they wanted to defund AT&T. I.e. you didn't need to move out of the region where most of your relations lived but it was a better deal to pay AT&T's tax (and regional monopolies charged more than true long distance on many regional calls). Potentially making a lot more money and having an entirely different life out weighed higher than market phone rates that made AT&T a successful cash cow.

[riku_iki]

Ok, but rant above was about decision makers, and looks like decision makers did just fine in building monopoly, 10 years ago google had 60% of search share, with Y and B another 15% each.

Also, it is not clear how much money google makes from search specifically, and how much from other verticals where there is stronger competition.