5 ms·
We have limited competition and call it a free market, when really it is a duopoly or oligopoly in many cases. In cloud, 66% of the market is held by 3 players.
by shrubble 4y ago
We have limited competition and call it a free market, when really it is a duopoly or oligopoly in many cases. In cloud, 66% of the market is held by 3 players.
In USA broadband you have the incumbent cable provider, the incumbent telco and maybe the 5g fixed wireless, which is from a different telco.
In other parts of the economy you will see the same pattern.
- kube-system 4y agoUtilities are often explicitly authorized monopolies. It's hard to leverage the free market for these types of services because of the physical impact they have.
- rented_mule 4y agoThis is why monopoly regulation exists, but it is not always employed. There is only one terrestrial internet provider where I live. There is zero oversight of their pricing (they just increased prices 20+%) or service. The only alternative is satellite, but that isn't much of an option because we get weather that takes it out for weeks at a time multiple times each winter (e.g., 10 feet of snow fell in the last week of February / first week of March). There is spotty cell coverage for ~20% of the town and none for the rest. So, no competition and no regulation.