Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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Great, so now we get a Microsoft/Google duopoly. Rejoice..... /sigh
You'd complain about a ton of gold being too heavy wouldn't you?
I'm complaining about the lack of something real ever happening to these companies. Just because you're too ignorant to understand what is(n't) going on here, doesn't mean that I'm complaining just for the sake of it.
Duopolys aren't any better than Monopolies, except for the illusion of choice. They'll move lock-step in line with one another, just like duopolys do, they'll still use the same anticompetitive practices, but instead of getting fucked by one dick, now you're getting fucked by two.
I'm glad you like being fucked so much that you're rejoicing over this news, but I'd rather there be real competition.
As soon as a company puts forth a superior search engine. We're all waiting.......
How many companies does it take to not become an -opoly anymore?
It's not really the number of companies that determines this, but rather the lack of any real competition. A small enough number of companies makes this more likely, so there's not likely a hard number of say...over 5 companies isn't an oligopoly, they can still be - so long as they're all focused on each other. If you see 1 company raise it's prices and all 4 others do too, then it's still an oligopoly. Because even though they aren't actively getting together, and saying "hey let's all raise our prices!", (collusion) - the effect is the same.
It ceases to be that when barriers to entry don't stop new competition from entering, and competition is active. (at least, that's the simplified answer; there's some more nuance to it, but that should at least give an overall understanding)