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>>Americans think they have a lot of choice - but most of the brands they buy are wholly or partially owned by only a handful of companies. I mean, what? Sure,

>>Americans think they have a lot of choice - but most of the brands they buy are wholly or partially owned by only a handful of companies. I mean, what? Sure, if I'm limited to only choosing from corporations. I can list off several local and regional pizza chains in my city, without even including broader restaurants that also serve pizza. Flights? I feel like American, United, delta, southwest, frontier, Alaska, JetBlue, Allegiant plus numerous smaller specialty airlines... that's a reasonable amount of choice for a business as complex as passenger air travel. Target, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Autozone, Dollar General, Publix, Trader Joe's, Aldi.. just because Walmart competes across multiple business lines doesn't mean they are the only option. Att is definitely a whale, but there are still options. most cities will have a cable provider, a few fiber entrants. 5g fixed internet service, served to you by Verizon's network of... privately owned towers. No choice except for T-Mobile, Verizon, sat options(?), MVNOs which are a weird bird in this case. I'm so confused what this article is trying to communicate. Walmart is the only Walmart except for Target and also maybe Amazon? What's the story?

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
It's about all markets being cartels (at best) viewed from market share perspectives. These aren't arbitrarily constructed market views. They are "industry standard" defined segments analyzed by MBAs, marketing, operations, etc. Do you disagree that media is controlled by three to four megacorps? That mobile telecom is controlled by three? That internet search is a monopoly? That there are only two mobile OSs that matter? That processed food are dominated by two or three companies, soda by two companies, healthcare by two (if you're lucky in your region), etc etc etc. CPUs, Video cards, DRAM. Beer and liquors. Even commodities like agriculture are surprisingly controlled, because ADM and Cargill position themselves at key rent extraction points in the food supply chain.
- ethagknight 4y ago
  My point is, the author grossly exaggerates the problem. There are large players dominating every industry (for now, those change out over time), and then there's myriad smaller players in most industries. I don't find anything unusual about a concentrated group of power players with the best offering at the moment gaining majority of market share, and a diversified group of secondary players that aren't as competitive. I don't know anything about video cards, but here's the Wikipedia List of video card manufacturers. I assume some of these are not "real" but there's a lot of brands I recognize in that list. Asrock,Asus,AMD,Biostar,Chaintech,Club 3D,Diamond Multimedia,ECS,ELSA Technology, EVGA Corporation, Foxconn, Gainward, Gigabyte Technology, HIS, Hercules Computer Technology, Inc, Leadtek, Matrox, Nvidia, MSI, Palit, PNY, Point of View, PowerColor, S3 Graphics, SapphireTechnology, SPARKLE,XFX,Zotac You may not want the inferior video cards manufactured by some of these players, but that's a different argument.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    They're manufacturing video cards, but the chips themselves are AMD or Nvidia (or, as of not long ago, Intel). It's like saying that the market for CPU processors isn't just Intel or AMD because there's also Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    Some of those are defunct like Hercules and S3 graphics. Some of those don't make cards either anymore like Diamond and EVGA. And most of them don't make their own video chips but assemble boards from AMD/Nvidia and I guess Intel now. So depending on how you define video card manufacturers there may only be 3.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

It's about all markets being cartels (at best) viewed from market share perspectives. These aren't arbitrarily constructed market views. They are "industry standard" defined segments analyzed by MBAs, marketing, operations, etc. Do you disagree that media is controlled by three to four megacorps? That mobile telecom is controlled by three? That internet search is a monopoly? That there are only two mobile OSs that matter? That processed food are dominated by two or three companies, soda by two companies, healthcare by two (if you're lucky in your region), etc etc etc. CPUs, Video cards, DRAM. Beer and liquors. Even commodities like agriculture are surprisingly controlled, because ADM and Cargill position themselves at key rent extraction points in the food supply chain.

ethagknight 4y ago
My point is, the author grossly exaggerates the problem. There are large players dominating every industry (for now, those change out over time), and then there's myriad smaller players in most industries. I don't find anything unusual about a concentrated group of power players with the best offering at the moment gaining majority of market share, and a diversified group of secondary players that aren't as competitive. I don't know anything about video cards, but here's the Wikipedia List of video card manufacturers. I assume some of these are not "real" but there's a lot of brands I recognize in that list. Asrock,Asus,AMD,Biostar,Chaintech,Club 3D,Diamond Multimedia,ECS,ELSA Technology, EVGA Corporation, Foxconn, Gainward, Gigabyte Technology, HIS, Hercules Computer Technology, Inc, Leadtek, Matrox, Nvidia, MSI, Palit, PNY, Point of View, PowerColor, S3 Graphics, SapphireTechnology, SPARKLE,XFX,Zotac You may not want the inferior video cards manufactured by some of these players, but that's a different argument.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  They're manufacturing video cards, but the chips themselves are AMD or Nvidia (or, as of not long ago, Intel). It's like saying that the market for CPU processors isn't just Intel or AMD because there's also Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Some of those are defunct like Hercules and S3 graphics. Some of those don't make cards either anymore like Diamond and EVGA. And most of them don't make their own video chips but assemble boards from AMD/Nvidia and I guess Intel now. So depending on how you define video card manufacturers there may only be 3.