Goliaths were and will always be around. But as long as there is an unregulated, free market - there will always be startups competing. It’s not easy, but it’s doable through innovation and creativity. The Goliaths are always more conservative, slower and less agile.
In the absence of regulation, goliaths will inevitably become monopolies and startups have no real chance to compete. The best a startup could be is to hope to be bought by the goliath.
How exactly will startups will have “no real chance to compete”? What is the mechanism that will stop them?
Unless prevented by governmental regulation or similar (like patents) startups move faster and are more innovative and creative. They are not the cheapest but competing on price is not a good idea for a startup anyway, and the monopoly cannot be the cheapest possible since that would diminish profits - then what would be the advantage to be a monopoly?
A monopolised market is ripe for disruption and VC are dying to fund startups who can claim a chunk of that market. Any startup bought out by a Goliath will fund another 10 in its stead.
I know zero cases of unbeatable monopolies in a free market. All monopolies had government support. Do you have any examples?
> How exactly will startups will have “no real chance to compete”? What is the mechanism that will stop them?
The established monopoly company will, either by strong-arming suppliers, service providers, and marketplaces into not doing business with the startup, or by just buying them.
At least, that's how it's traditionally been done.
> strong-arming [...] into not doing business with the startup
Isn't that illegal already?! I don't see how extra regulation can change anything. Any company is liable to try anti-competitive behavior and that is why it's illegal, monopoly or not.
And even if the government fails to stop Goliath from doing illegal stuff, a free market will route around it. See how Microsoft/Intel - monopolies in the 90s got out-innovated and made irrelevant by pure market forces while the anti-trust government action merely delivered a slap on the wrist.
Free markets work. Unless we regulate them to discourage startups.
Example of highly regulated markets: health care, energy, transport, education, telecoms. The result? It's almost impossible to compete, prices are high and products crappy.
> or by just buying them
Thus funding 10 new startups in the field since it's now known that the Goliath is exiting newcomers. Gold rush for any VC!
> Isn't that illegal already?! I don't see how extra regulation can change anything
I'm not sure what you mean by "extra regulation" here. Yes, it is illegal, and that's an example of appropriate regulation. I had the impression you were arguing against regulation, though. I think I don't understand your stance here, so my responses may be off the mark.
> Free markets work.
They do, although they aren't a magic panacea. And a free market cannot exist in the absence of appropriate regulation.
> Unless we regulate them to discourage startups.
I agree. Appropriate regulation is not intended to discourage startups.
the only solid fact that you need is that tech giants of the past are not tech giants today, and the same way MS missed mobile market, Nokia failed with touchscreen smartphones, atnt and its parts failed to innovate, ibm lost and left pc/x86server etc, current giants are likely to loose. The only difference now is that the biggest competition today is from foreign companies that leads to them being able to get support of government and therefore compete not on the basis of merit, but in a political way.
well, there is an assumption, that the circumstances are a political/economical system which is the same one. But there is an argument to be made about deterioration of institutions
And it's a huge assumption. To the level of "you can ignore friction" for middle school physics class.
You need to look no further back than the robber barons to see "tech" (yes they were tech, not in the modern sense but industrial) and how it required massive political mobilization to get rid off. It wasn't "free market" that did it, in matter of fact it perpetuated the monopolistic behavior.
We can cherry pick history all day. The point is that "only required argument is historic" is stupidity, and often requires assumptions, cherry picking and nitpicking