What are antitrust laws for, when competition is normal with businesses?
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So one of the problems with monopolies I don’t see a lot of mention of yet is that they end up spilling over to other areas, and that tends to be when anti-trust legislation really gets used.
For example, Microsoft had (and arguably still has) an effective monopoly on desktop operating systems (other options exist, but had small market shares). Nobody really batted an eye at that, but then when the internet started becoming popular and web browser software became important, Microsoft created Internet Explorer as a web browser and added it into the operating system. That’s when regulators took notice, as they were using their monopoly power over operating systems and using it to try and establish a monopoly over web browsing software, creating unfair competition in that space. (they probably could have/should have had action taken against office software as well, with things like Lotus and WordPerfect going away once Microsoft started pushing Word and Excel)
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