> Walmart + Amazon combined are only ~16% of the retail business.
of ALL RETAIL? That includes groceries! That's huge! Anyway, Amazon is >40% of e-commerce & Walmart is >10%. Together they control more than half of all online commerce. That's definitely monopolistic.
> It was not already a monopoly. […] shortly before your noted date of "regulation" those competitors held the majority market share
From Wikipedia: "AT&T controlled over 80% of the U.S. telephone system market by 1907 and Theodore Newton Vail rejoined the company as its President. Vail negotiated with competitors, charging them fees for connecting to AT&T's long-distance network. These practices led the Justice Department to attempt to breakup AT&T, but a settlement was reached through the Kingsbury Commitment on December 13, 1913. It brought federal oversight into AT&T and led its Bell System monopoly to become federally regulated."
They had an 80% market share pre-regulation. Yes, it was already a monopoly.
>They had an 80% market share pre-regulation. Yes, it was already a monopoly.
Absolute and utter hogwash -- a straight up lie. You must be using a very liberal version of 'control.'
After seventeen years of monopoly*, the United States had a limited telephone system of 270,000 phones concentrated in the centers of the cities, with service generally unavailable in the outlying areas. After thirteen years of competition**, the United States had an extensive system of six million telephones, almost evenly divided between Bell and the independents, with service available practically anywhere in the country.[1]
* My note, under the government imposed patent monopoly period -- Bell's patent expired in the 1894 which started the "years of competition." **13 years of competition marks 1907.
That is, by 1907, the market had dropped from a patent imposed monopoly to half-and-half, and getting shredded further by competition (that is until regulation in 1913, when AT&T started to pick up market share again). This 80% quote is total fiction unless you're using some weasel version of 'control.' The monopolies were all government imposed -- first by the patent and then later by regulation ('universal telephone service' reguluation and commissions and franchises, also ~nationalization and government intervention circa WWI).
Also of interesting note -- to look at the ownership of telephones before and after the Kingsbury committment. They had been falling off a cliff after the patent expired, but then ramped up at pretty much the same time as the Kingsbury Commitment (minima at 1910, with what looks to be 5 year granularity).[2]
>of ALL RETAIL? That includes groceries! That's huge! Anyway, Amazon is >40% of e-commerce & Walmart is >10%. Together they control more than half of all online commerce. That's definitely monopolistic.
And 100% of business with an Amazon logo on it! Amazon has 40% of e-commerce, walmart has 6%, even together they are a minority. Even with all the efficiencies of Amazon logistics they still together can't break half of the market. And even if they did, their margins are so razor thin that they could not engage in monopolistic behavior, as the second they raise prices they can again be eaten alive by the other 54% or one another.
of ALL RETAIL? That includes groceries! That's huge! Anyway, Amazon is >40% of e-commerce & Walmart is >10%. Together they control more than half of all online commerce. That's definitely monopolistic.
> It was not already a monopoly. […] shortly before your noted date of "regulation" those competitors held the majority market share
From Wikipedia: "AT&T controlled over 80% of the U.S. telephone system market by 1907 and Theodore Newton Vail rejoined the company as its President. Vail negotiated with competitors, charging them fees for connecting to AT&T's long-distance network. These practices led the Justice Department to attempt to breakup AT&T, but a settlement was reached through the Kingsbury Commitment on December 13, 1913. It brought federal oversight into AT&T and led its Bell System monopoly to become federally regulated."
They had an 80% market share pre-regulation. Yes, it was already a monopoly.