Re: My Dinner With Marc Andreessen

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Rich wrote:

D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

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On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:
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D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Andreas Eder wrote:

On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
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I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.

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Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
keep them free.

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Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.

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Nope, actually governments tend to create oligopolies due to being such
big actors on the market that work according to politics and not according
to profit motive. FANG profit handsomely by government protection.

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Both of these statements are true and they are in no way contradictory.
--scott
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:wq
Nope, they are contradictory.

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The statements are not contradictory.

They are. One sentence says that free markets become oligopolies (which is not true) while the other says that government regulated markets (non-free markets) become oligopolies.
Either free markets create them, or non-free markets. If both create them, this discussion is meaningless. Needless to say, I do not believe so, but if someone does believe it, I see no point in continuing talking.

The act of regulation decreases freedom, hence increases
oligopoly/monopoly.  It is of course a spectrum and not binary, but
the more regulation, the more monopoly and the end station is
socialism where the government is the monopoly with all the power,
and the citizens being slaves.

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You are correct.
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Only less regulation and more free markets can counter that. Johan
Norbergs book, The capitalist manifesto also proves conclusively that less
regulation and more freedom is the only thing that leads to increase
quality of life.

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Yes, and no.  You may be overlooking that in a totally free market, the
competitors are also completely free to purchase each other, reducing
the overall competition.  If the specific market has large market
specific capitol costs for entry (i.e., must build a $5Bn or more
semiconductor chip fab in order to enter and compete) then, over time,
consolidation (largest competitor purchasing up smaller competitors)
can happen faster than new entrants such that, in the limit, the result
will also be monopoly.

If they raise the price, competitors will form, or alternatives will be developed. Therefore, even though a monopoly might form, prices will not go to infinity. And the likelihood that a monopoly will form with global reach, without government contracts or regulation are close to non-existent.
For a more in depth explanation have a look at this:
https://fee.org/articles/how-the-free-market-handles-monopoly/ .