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Have to disagree with this sentiment. I understand where it's coming from, but it simply doesn't play out that way in reality. Competition is important to deter

Have to disagree with this sentiment. I understand where it's coming from, but it simply doesn't play out that way in reality. Competition is important to determine which service is going to last. If there are 80 startups in the exact same space, how would I (as a potential user) know which to pick? It'd be a guess at best. Let's say a year later only 5 are left, and 4 of those have slightly pivoted into other niches. Now it becomes very easy to decide which service to use. Had they not been competing against each other, none of them would have found their niche market. I'd consider THAT the "no one wins" proposition.

anon808 14y ago
'how would I (as a potential user) know which to pick?' How about which one serves you the best? So you're saying if one of the services with the shittiest product raised $100MM more than the others, gave their product away for free and outlasted all of the others, you would let that 'competition' decided which was the best service for you to use?
- tg3 14y ago
  It doesn't generally play out that way. Buying the market is a short-term play, and isn't sustainable. PayPal beat the other payment services because they figured out the fraud problem. Google beat other search engines because they brought more relevant results. The market, meaning the aggregated mass of consumers, chooses which product is best by using (and usually paying for) the product. That product is the winner. Competition is what drives the individual players to improve their product in response to the market. Without that you have a command economy or a monopoly, both of which are notoriously inefficient and un-innovative.