Just like the classic game of Monopoly, everybody wants to land on Boardwalk. Not if someone already owns it but as players play the game in spots are beginning to be bought, there's no better spot to land on than Boardwalk. But why is this? Mainly because once you own it and you can develop it, you can charge people a lot of money if they also land on it. Same goes for all the other spots on the board and this is pretty relevant to the topic of monopolies and how there is, to put it plainly, a misconception of what a monopoly is.
Monopoly, as stated in our lecture video, is the power to control an item or service within a certain market. Now, in our society, we have freedom of choice and we tend to choose innovation and progression, but we also like just having the newer, nicer things that are available to us. A perfect illustration of this was the iPhone example where it was the first of its kind and was a monopoly over the smartphone market at its time, but because of the innovation that Apple brought forth, it allowed a new market to be created, getting rid of old ways but also creating a lot of new opportunities and avenues for more businesses to compete. Now, some people may argue that Apple is a monopoly, but that is not necessarily true. They just provide a good and service that most people desire and are willing to pay a premium for. This is not Apple's fault; they're simply taking advantage of the situation. But let's be honest, who wants to settle for a Samsung?
All jokes aside, I'd like to reference myself from one of the previous discussions we've had where I mentioned that without competition, there's no innovation, and in a free enterprise society, it allows for entrepreneurs and inventors to create new ways and new things that eventually is going to have some value to the consumer. Otherwise, there would be no reason to innovate. The reason why companies have been able to scale to such a large size is that they have been able to extend on an idea and continue to research and develop, making it better and better. The only true instance of a monopoly in a negative way is, as an example, I was using the lecture as well, power companies and other companies that are not allowed to have any other competition because of house regulations and rulings are set for certain areas; here you have no other choice.
There is no other option unless you just either go without power or suffer with other solutions like solar panels or generators or what have you. The biggest example of a monopoly would be Standard Oil company, which was the largest oil company in the world at the time, and the government ruled that it was a monopoly because it had so much power because everybody wanted to use oil. But by splitting their company, Standard Oil became a bunch of smaller companies, which were still structured corporately to have profits go to one place, but this, in its sense, was kind of counterproductive because it just made their company bigger without it being one company. Same goes for Coca-Cola and other big-name brands that we associate with just being one; they're actually structured as multiple different companies, be it be LLC's corporate chain whatever. But a good point to bring up too is that there will always be alternatives, may not be as good, but they follow suit in imitation of the pioneer. One of my favorite quotes by John Deere is actually "innovation, not imitation," or John Deere is, for the most part, on the front of a lot of innovative technology in the agricultural world,the idea of being the monopolist in the sense of being the first one to bring it to market and having others follow suit from their end allows them to not only be the first but also if theirs is not the best and there is a smaller startup company or any other company operating individually, they can go and buy it up, making their products better for the market. And again, some could argue that John Deere is also a monopoly, but I'm not going to drive a different tractor, and there are a lot of other people that would also agree with me.
So when you look at the idea of what a monopoly is, it's really created by the mind, and in a literal sense, is the creation of law and regulation that only gives you one option, like a dictatorship. But watching this lecture and thinking about it more as open my eyes to actually seeing monopolies as more of a good thing. I have always kinda had the idea that monopolies were bad but never actually had anything to back the idea; it's just what everyone kind of says, but it'll surprise you when you actually go and dig around the roots a little bit what you'll find. So next time you play Monopoly, whatever spot you land on, even if it's not Park Place, buy it up, be the first, let others follow suit, and pay you.
