For years I’ve read about the Federal Trade Commission accusing several tech companies of being monopolies. But why don’t they go after the cable companies? It seems like that is the biggest monopoly of all in most parts of the country, where you often only have 1 choice for internet.
In: Economics
If you had 10 cable companies providing to your area, they’d all have to run their service through your entire area. It would cost them more PER customer which means your cost would be higher.
Since they are allowed to service all customers in the area, they can do so at a lower cost per customer and you save money. The government awards this leeway in exchange for them keeping costs affordable.
In an unchecked monopoly, they’d just raise prices because you have no other option.
A lot of companies have monopolies on things at any given time. Ie. if I have the patent on a new technology……I have a monopoly on that market. These companies get in trouble when they go around buying up all of their competition.
Latest Answers