| If you're arguing from the example of successful companies, the argument is circular. It ignores the technology companies that didn't become monopolies even though they shipped better products. It also ignores the companies that became monopolies with inferior technology - not least, IBM with the original PC, which was a dated and inefficient design even when it was introduced, but succeeded because of marketing and a ready-made sales force. Likewise, arguably, for MS DOS and Windows. Windows 3.1 was about seven years behind the leading edge of personal computing when it shipped. Home users had been buying computers with full multitasking and (relatively, for the time) excellent graphics and sound from around 1988. Win 3.1 was a big step back from that. It succeeded because it was a PC product, and it could be sold to millions of technically uneducated PC buyers. Mediocre product in absolute terms. But a huge market surface. Even Google search could be improved. It's good enough, but it's not the last word in what's possible in search. (I don't remember it being a whole lot better than AltaVista. It wasn't worse either, so there was no big reason to swap back.) You don't make a monopoly with bleeding edge tech. You make it by finding or carving a niche with a huge potential customer base, and having significantly more effective marketing. The product itself can be mediocre. It's perception that matters. Which is why I don't think Tesla will ever be a monopoly. The niche is too small - much smaller than the rest of the car market - and the big players have marketing experience and a dealer network that Tesla doesn't. And Google will carry on dominating search until 'search' becomes a legacy product and leaves an opening for a smart startup. |