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> Even companies like Standard Oil and Walmart would make money from other streams when they are putting a price squeeze on some competitor. If you have eviden
by barry-cotter 5y ago
> Even companies like Standard Oil and Walmart would make money from other streams when they are putting a price squeeze on some competitor.
If you have evidence Standard Oil ever sold anything at a loss please share. I don't know about Walmart but everything I've read suggests that Standard Oil won by getting better at manufacturing faster than its competitors and passing on those cost savings to consumers. Less efficient companies failed, as those selling worse products for high prices are wont to do.
- rtpg 5y agoI mean it's _the_ Standard Oil. They used their massive market domination and control of every step of the process to just destroy competitors. I mean yeah they succeeded because it turns out that for a commodity just having one large network for everything is more efficient (and if you own everything, no middlemen!). But that's just an argument for nationalising commodities. All that Standard Oil profit year after year came from somebody.
- vasco 5y ago> But that's just an argument for nationalising commodities. Because the government is so great at efficiently doing things and selling things I can totally see how you'd make the leap to nationalize all commodities.
- asdff 5y agoStandard oil raising prices on customers in a monopoly and cutting prices to the point of not making a profit in markets with competitors was one of the central arguments of the U.S. government prosecution in the antitrust case. In the case of walmart it has been engaged in a price war with Aldi in certain markets in the past decade.