> There is no Lord with control over all the land and thus control over the people, who need to work the land to survive.
But there is.
The lords change with time (oh, do they ever!), but there are inherent aspects of technology which make it very prone to developing monopolies.
First was AT&T (we're talking 1913 and the initial anti-trust agreement, the Kingsbury Committment). In the 1950s, IBM emerged as a computing powerhouse, a position it retained until 1990. Intel dominated (and still dominates) ICs and CPUs. Microsoft ruled consumer operating system space from the late 1980s through the mid 2000s, and still dominates in business workstations and small servers. Apple, Google, and Facebook have emerged in portable consumer electronics, search and applications, and social networking, respectively. Telecoms is once again a monopoly or oligopoly, with AT&T owning POTS and Comcast most cable contracts.
Attacking any one of these positions is very difficult. Generally, the old giants collapse either from internal mismanagement, the emergence of a new paradigm or technology, or both. Technical superiority, economies of scale, and network effects generally provide extremely strong competitive advantages to market leaders.
However brief their tenure in the power seat, during that tenure, the incumbent or incumbents are exceptionally powerful. Most of the companies I've listed have been among the most highly valued in the world at some point in their existence.
But there is.
The lords change with time (oh, do they ever!), but there are inherent aspects of technology which make it very prone to developing monopolies.
First was AT&T (we're talking 1913 and the initial anti-trust agreement, the Kingsbury Committment). In the 1950s, IBM emerged as a computing powerhouse, a position it retained until 1990. Intel dominated (and still dominates) ICs and CPUs. Microsoft ruled consumer operating system space from the late 1980s through the mid 2000s, and still dominates in business workstations and small servers. Apple, Google, and Facebook have emerged in portable consumer electronics, search and applications, and social networking, respectively. Telecoms is once again a monopoly or oligopoly, with AT&T owning POTS and Comcast most cable contracts.
Attacking any one of these positions is very difficult. Generally, the old giants collapse either from internal mismanagement, the emergence of a new paradigm or technology, or both. Technical superiority, economies of scale, and network effects generally provide extremely strong competitive advantages to market leaders.
However brief their tenure in the power seat, during that tenure, the incumbent or incumbents are exceptionally powerful. Most of the companies I've listed have been among the most highly valued in the world at some point in their existence.