https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m... N

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m... Note that this was a policy decision based on whim and a politician lobbying. No hearing, no evidence, no recourse, no rights and no meaningful alternative. Also a decision not taken by the banks nor, I believe, were they consulted. The upopular person's (Wikileaks here) rights are your rights and my rights. If you think the've done the wrong thing, you're entitled to that opion and establishing that is literally what courts are for. Much the same way we might want law and courts involved for suspension of a driving license and not simply because a politician doesn't like you and lobbies a bit. "Nobody who drives for UPS can drive on the roads because they love Putin" --not as ridiculous a fabricated politician's quote as it should be. But going back to it being a data network and standards organisation that describes the classic long-run decreasing average total cost curve of the natural monopoly which makes privatising it for profit a pure "rent-seeking" play. So we can see how egregious the monopoly is two ways there. Practically with an example and according to classic and relatively uncontroversial micoreconomic theory. So what about the classic monopolists' defence, which will come up again here. Define the market to be bigger and claim it's a small fraction of that bigger market. Can we just dismiss that as total B.S.? ie "You can also use cash to buy things." Try running a business or calculate the additional cost of buying the things you need without using the visa/mastercard network. Unless you have multiple networks with very low switching costs it's a disaster. Disclosure: Ajit Pai disagrees with all that totally.