> If a company can win a market, that begs the question why. Are there regulatory barriers preventing competition? Can competitors not compete on price?
A reason why a new competitor might not be able to compete on price is because of capital disparity. The winner can lower prices, buyout the competitor or if that fails they can always turn to buying out distributors/suppliers/key employees of their competitor
> Monopolies are inherently harmful to the customer. A monopoly implies lack of competition.
Depends why there is a lack of competition. Are there barriers of entry to the market? Were they put up by the company? Or do they just have such an awesome product at a great price they no one can offer a better / commutative alternative?
>"that you should actively pursue building a monopoly, since "competition is for losers"
Because from your business' perspective, you want a monopoly to have the greatest potential success. This doesn't preclude competition; your competitors are also trying to build a monopoly.
> How can you have market competition if they ban competition?
By having the competition on other levels than prices (not totally, since the prices at which the shop buys the books are not fixed, so they compete for good deals on that end)
> you can't sell your product if you don't have any competition
What he meant was that competitors indicate there's a market.
It's unlikely that he meant that having competitors for competitors sake was useful in itself.
An interesting example is Airbnb vs. the existing "legit" homestay sharing companies.
The older companies proved there was a market, but Airbnb grew quickly without the older competitors being top of mind. And in fact, Airbnb actually illegally competed with hotels, not sharing homestays.
So let's compete! What are they selling? What prevents competitors from springing up?
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