I disagree. Competition is important, sure, because every customer will evaluate you against them and will only decide for your product if he finds it better. B

I disagree. Competition is important, sure, because every customer will evaluate you against them and will only decide for your product if he finds it better. BUT, you don't need to be better in every aspect. You can represent a better alternative for only a subset of customers, and still have a big enough market share. I think most businesses, when they are driven out by competition, actually fail at delivering value. Competitors just show them how it should be done. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to change how an existing business entity operates.