Thanks for this—it’s an important part of modeling the world and understanding the competitive and cooperative symbiosis of commerce (and generally, human interaction).
I think application of this model requires extending the idea of “monopoly” to include partial substitutability (most non-government-supported monopolies aren’t all or nothing, they’re hard-to-quantify-but-generally-small differences in desirability). And also some amount of human herding and status-quo bias that makes a temporary advantage much more long-lived if you can make it habitual or accepted standard.
Thanks for this—it’s an important part of modeling the world and understanding the competitive and cooperative symbiosis of commerce (and generally, human interaction).
I think application of this model requires extending the idea of “monopoly” to include partial substitutability (most non-government-supported monopolies aren’t all or nothing, they’re hard-to-quantify-but-generally-small differences in desirability). And also some amount of human herding and status-quo bias that makes a temporary advantage much more long-lived if you can make it habitual or accepted standard.