No one's really arguing that YC is technically a monopoly. That would be pretty ridiculous to assume since YC is not really a traditional business in of itself

No one's really arguing that YC is technically a monopoly. That would be pretty ridiculous to assume since YC is not really a traditional business in of itself and is not selling a product to consumers (not that this is the only way for something to be classified as a monopoly). So of course the term monopoly shouldn't be applied literally. The spirit of the post still remains true and I think we'd better off if we started a healthy conversation around it instead of forming straw man arguments.