I think there’s a perfectly good reason for their nigh-monopoly: Pantone has been clawing their way to the top of the space of talking about color for a little

I think there’s a perfectly good reason for their nigh-monopoly: Pantone has been clawing their way to the top of the space of talking about color for a little under sixty years now, with a constantly-updated set of references that they managed to get into every commercial artist’s toolkit for a big part of that span of time. That said a quick check suggests that the average corporate lifespan is anywhere from 20-60 years, depending on the list, so they may be ripe for disruption.