[mschuster91]

> How does this "hinder the growth of human development"

Easy. The larger any company gets, the more difficult it becomes to compete with them as customers of a potential competitor expect a certain set of features to be available to even consider migration, and thus the large company gets ever more and more market share over time. On top of that the large company may simply outspend a competitor in advertising or sue competitors for barely-legal patents.

Capitalism at its core is the ruthless elimination of inefficiencies, and competition is inefficiency (just look how many dozens of billions of VC were burned in the "gig economy" sector to get rid of competitors).

The problem for the development of humanity is that an entrenched, dominant/monopolist company has zero reasons to innovate and progress.

[max_]

Consumers always have the opportunity to switch.

Also, VCs do fund competitors so it's not as black & white as you think.

[mschuster91]

> Consumers always have the opportunity to switch.

For that, there needs to be an alternative option. Just look at Walmart and how they destroy small food stores in a massive radius around them as no small retailer can compete with their scale.

[troupo]

> Consumers always have the opportunity to switch.

No, they don't always have a choice