> It is tiring to hear that kind of argument all the time to determine if a business is a monopoly ( monopsonist ) or not Nevertheless, that's the relevant bar

> It is tiring to hear that kind of argument all the time to determine if a business is a monopoly ( monopsonist ) or not Nevertheless, that's the relevant bar to clear. If consumers reasonably have another option, no matter if the use it or not, then there's not a monopoly. At any given time, there will be a "most convenient" or otherwise "default" provider for a given class of product, a sort of "monopoly of convenience", and there will be some stickyness to that provider - but that's stickyness, not monopoly. Just like the supermarket down the road can't lure you away from your "default choice" supermarket with a 2 cent discount on butter, Amazon's competitors can't lure customers away with minor niche publications - but if Hachette actually choses not to distribute, say, the promised new Harry Potter universe books on Amazon, a very large number of people will break their stickyness to Amazon to read it - and Amazon would do well to heed such a threat.