| >Except you were talking about startups originally, don't change the scenario when someone points out flaws. Startups don't have the power or money to enforce a monopoly. Where did I stop talking about startups? All the participants, including startups, that compete for the same market would have the incentive to merge or collude, but only if they can ensure that no one defects or fails to join, because the first defector breaks the monopoly (especially in software where there is effectively infinite reproduction capacity). And they (startups included) could reliably do that with contracts and buyouts if it wasn't illegal, in any market with sufficiently few qualified participants. But it is illegal, which is why even startups don't -- not because it will necessarily be enforced against the startup during the first merger, but because they know that if it works and they ultimately achieve the end goal of a monopoly or cartel, that is what will raise antitrust scrutiny. So we don't start down that road because we know where it currently goes. Also, I never intended to limit what I'm talking about to startups: I used a startup as an example, but this applies generally. Non-startup small businesses could benefit from working together in similar ways. (As could large businesses, though that quickly becomes the exemplification of why we don't allow it -- again, we still need something to address that.) And I would also point out that trotsky started talking about mergers so I wrote to address that, but collusion would probably be easier and more manageable, especially if it could be legally enforced between business entities through contracts. >More than that, you're ignoring the reality of a merger which would be a lot of corporate politics ending up with most of the originals founders getting kicked out. The handful who played the game the best will end up getting the whole pie. How, if they all have to continue colluding in order for it to work? If you have unhappy former competitors they can quickly become happy future competitors. The only deal that works is the one that makes all the former competitors better off than they would have been otherwise. That might involve some of them not being involved in the operations anymore, but they would still get a piece of the pie. |