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Like most things, the solution is freedom in normal situations and government regulation in monopoly situations.
Agree. The broad strokes are obvious.
Doing that in practice is hard. Most businesses have some market power and even Americas tech firms have some competition. Excel is actually a great example. Some time around 2010 MSFT stock was trading in the 20’s and conventional wisdom was it’s a value trap and going out of business. Googlesheets were invented and free. Eventually people realized there are a lot of 50+ year old bankers and accountants that would rather write a check to Microsoft every year for $100 than learn a similar but slightly different software. Which is rational by those bankers as writing a Microsoft check for about $2k the rest of the career is a lot cheaper than learning new software (at $200 an hour that’s 10 hrs of work). And since the old people wouldn’t switch all the young people had to be compatible. At one point conventional wisdom was Excel was not a monopoly but I would say today it is a monopoly.
Even a fairly basic cake making business has a little market power. As it’s a pain point to travel an extra 15 minutes to find another baker.
I would say Excel = restricted Baker= not restricted most people would say is fair. But the exact line is far messier.
An interesting current case is the Tapestry/Capri merger. A quick synopsis is Tapestry is buying Capri which is basically a roll-up of mid-tier luxury brands. Handbags and shoes. I think these markets are highly competitive and fairly easy to enter (honestly Temu seems to have a lot of cheaper products that look the same). The Biden administration is suing to block the mergers saying antitrust/monopoly. I think this market is clearly in the baker category.
Disclosure: long and wrong. It’s trading $36. Deal closes at $56. If it breaks your probably talking a puke close to $20 and eventually trading around $25. I think the economics are clearly in favor of it closing. But it’s in a NY Court with a Biden appointed judge which is outside my personal Overton window of knowledge and I deeply distrust blue enclave courts now.
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