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> The alternative is a race to bankrupt all competitors at enormous cost in order to jack up prices and recoup the losses as a monopoly

I don't know of an instance of this happening successfully.



Walmart? It's certainly more successful in physical markets


See Amazon


Different markets entirely—I can't walk into amazon, and I don't order online from Walmart.


You can order online from Walmart:

https://www.walmart.com/

Amazon can ship it to a location near you.


Again, different markets, because I'm not going to do either of those things—if I'm ordering online amazon has better selection, and if I want to walk somewhere to pick something up I'm not going to wait for shipping.


Are you saying that Amazon is a successful monopoly, or that Amazon is even with massive expenses still not a full monopoly?


Walmart competes with Amazon.


taxi apps, delivery apps, social media apps—all of these require a market that's extremely expensive to build but is also extremely lucrative to exploit and difficult to unseat. You see this same model with big-box stores displacing local stores. The secret to making a lot of money under capitalism is to have a lot of money to begin with.


Taxis are a government created monopoly.

None of the big-box stores have created a monopoly.

Amazon unseated behemoth Walmart with a mere $300,000 startup capital.

Musk founded his empire with $28,000.


> Taxis are a government created monopoly.

Taxi apps—uber & lyft. They moved into an area (often illegally); spent a shit-ton of money to displace local legal taxis, and then jacked up prices when the competition ceased to exist. Now I can't hail a taxi anymore if I don't have a phone.

> None of the big-box stores have created a monopoly.

They do in my region. Mom and pop shops are gone.

> Amazon unseated behemoth Walmart with a mere $300,000 startup capital.

We've been over this—they occupy different markets.

> Musk founded his empire with $28,000.

Sure. It would have been far easier to do with more capital.


Uber and Lyft compete with each other. The higher prices resulted from government mandates on pay for the drivers.

Amazon and Walmart do compete with each other. Neither has a monopoly. Nor have I noticed jacked up prices from them.


Amazon


See Walmart




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