> e.g. Google is a monopoly if you consider online advertising as the market, but if you stretch the market to all advertising (including print, radio, TV and billboards), Google might not be considered one.
Only a very narrow definition of online advertising would leave Google as a monopoly. Both Amazon and Facebook make a lot of money charging companies to promote products online.
> Can someone explain how Google has a monopoly when there are competitors in their league?
Being a monopoly doesn’t mean you have no competitors - it means you have enough control of the market to artificially affect/set the market price for something (ie that there was not enough competition for efficient pricing).
> Google has 80% of the search market. Facebook controls 70% of social media.
Wrong way to think about this. If you talk about advertising monopoly, sure. But you'd be hard-pressed to make an argument on a monopoly of free products.
> Netflix put Blockbuster and every other movie rental store out of business.
That's because Blockbuster was, quite frankly, shit. They failed to adapt to the internet. So what? Times move on. Netflix is far far better for consumers.
Something isn't a monopoly just because it's popular.
> none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies
Imagine thinking that google doesn’t have a monopoly on search. That Amazon doesn’t have a monopoly on selling goods online, etc.
Now these companies do lots of other things that they don’t monopolize, but they ARE monopolies in specific high value spaces and they leverage those monopolies in their other endeavours.
Like Walmart has a monopoly on shelf space at walmart.
Apple does not have a monopoly on neither Phones nor on application markets for phones. They have a very attractive market, which they control, but not a monopoly.
> The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it.
The only way of identifying a monopoly is to see if they have (very close to) 100% market share.
What you're talking about is a company with market power. Incidentally, this is also what the FTC regulates. Being a monopoly is 100% legal as long as you don't abuse your market position. And you can abuse your market position without being a monopoly.
Maybe you think that's pedantic, but I think it's an important distinction. Google is not a monopoly - they have significant competition in every market they're in. But they are still very abusive in wielding their power.
>but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.
> Could you name an existing stable monopoly that is not a state-granted monopoly.
No, because we have regulations to prevent them and break them up.
There are a number of entities that are clearly restraining their classically monopolistic behavior BECAUSE of the regulations such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
> Not saying google isn't a monopoly, it classically is
Most people I've seen equate monopoly with "95% of people use", which really isn't a monopoly. As far as I'm aware, dominating a market is not the sole criteria of a monopoly (although I am aware it is a sign of successful one, correlation/causation).
For someone who doesn't follow this kind of thing, can anyone point to concrete examples of "no other company does this" monopoly or "actively stifling competition" anti-trust practices taken by google without just scoffing and saying its obvious?
>And yet, Google has near monopoly power over search. Facebook has near monopoly power over social media. Amazon is nearing monopoly power over internet retail
Absolute nonsense. These players have large market shares but that is not anything close to a monopoly. Bing, Walmart, and Twitter are just 1 second away.
Here is a rule of thumb, if you can change companies in less than 5 minutes without getting dressed, they have nothing close to a monopoly.
The reason they haven't "wielded their enormous power" is because people can so easily switch. That's not a problem monopolies or near monopolies have (see Comcast for an example of near monopoly behavior).
Social media and search seem to exhibit signs of monopoly as well.
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