First, oligopoly is a far cry from monopoly. Barring collusion (which is illegal under anti-trust law) oligopoly markets can be extremely competitive, leading to razor-thin profit margins, low prices, rapid technological change, and consumer choice: compare the current mobile OS market to Windows in the 90s, or even the cell phone service market to pre-1980s AT&T.

Second, successful companies continue to grow to achieve scale efficiencies, but at some point, 'bigger' starts to bring its own problems of lack of agility and innovation and uncoordinated management. Anyone who watched Microsoft or Detroit's big three stumble can see this. So there's a limit to how large a company can/should grow based on the nature of its business.

Third, whether a market becomes an oligopoly or not depends on the overall size of the market relative to the efficient size of a company. The extreme case of a natural monopoly happens when the size of the market is smaller than the efficient size of the company (so there's room for only one), but in most cases, the market is large enough to accommodate several firms of efficient size.

Finally, just because a market is an oligopoly doesn't mean the same players remain successful and continue to control the market. Changing technology and innovation create a lot of churn (Schumpeter's creative destruction). This is particularly true in the IT world where leaders can quickly lose their edge to small upstarts and the game is changing at break-neck speed. A few years ago, Asus was a name known only to geeks, now it's a household name churning out millions of netbooks each year. A year ago, nobody gave a shit about 'tablets', now it's the rage with a few unlikely names poised for success (Samsung?!). There's still plenty of room for 'garage' innovation here, and lots of venture capital to see it through to commercial success.

Ever heard of venture capital? In a normal economy (perhaps not right now!) a garage company with a proven idea and a serious business plan would have no trouble raising the necessary millions to grow.

Only on slashdot would such economic bullshit (and the socioeconomic bullshit referenced within) get modded +5 insightful and repeated ad-nauseum. Free markets do NOT tend towards monopolies eventually. The vast majority of markets are not monopolies and are in no danger of becoming so, regardless of government intervention or regulation. The evidence on this is so overwhelming I wouldn't know where to begin. In fact, there are so few examples of natural/existing monopolies (where the efficient scale of production exceeds the size of the market) that we tend to use the same examples over and over in classrooms and textbooks (public utilities).

The internet and information goods have some interesting characteristics (e.g. network effects) that tend to encourage consolidation, but even in this area, changing technology and consumer preferences tend to overthrow dominant firms (e.g. Microsoft).

And yes, I'm an economist.

I'm not asking you to give me examples of what *you* consider vanishingly small. I'm asking for references that "vanishingly small" probability is the same as "zero" probability. You've provided none.

Just because "almost surely" and "almost everywhere" are precise mathematical concepts (which they are) doesn't mean "vanishingly small" also is. Ditto with "infinitesimals".

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

From a Google search on "vanishingly small", you can see that the phrase is used to describe something very small, but not equal to zero. In this case, the probability *is* zero, so "vanishingly small" is incorrect. Of course, you're free to prove me wrong and provide a credible reference where the phrase is used the way you describe.

We're having a discussion about mathematics. Let's not screw things up by using language incorrectly!

Just because you were caught posting with your pants down ( -- allusion!) doesn't mean you have to be rude to me :)

Enjoy getting the final word in after this post. Bye.

If you're trying to provide better intuition, don't increase the number of doors to infinity! Most people don't understand or intuit infinity. In fact, the parent doesn't understand infinity, because with an infinite number of doors,, the probability that you picked the car is exactly zero, not "vanishingly small", and the odds are not "very, very high" but exactly 1 that you picked a goat to start with.

Stick with about 1000 doors - that usually delivers the intuition without confusing people!

Perhaps they can now stop worrying about plugging the analog hole.

I think the reason people will continue to use Windows rather than Linux is the relative certainty that any peripheral you buy will work with Windows. This is because if you're a hardware manufacturer, and you're only going to build one driver, it's going to be the Windows driver.

I use Windows XP. I can plug in the newest blackberry, the newest iPhone, my Hauppauge HD PVR, my logitech webcam with integrated mic, my canon camcorder and point-and-shoot, my son's speaking bear that downloads custom songs, my eSata card interfacing with external hard drive enclosure, my network all-in-one HP printer/scanner/fax, and anything else I choose to pick up off the shelf from Newegg or Best Buy.

Before you post telling me how you can run all these things on Linux, please understand that with Windows, I get to use the manufacturer's drivers, which is what the hardware was probably developed and tested with. I don't have to wait for the reverse-engineered open source version, or the crippled Linux beta driver from the manufacturer. I don't have to worry that the integrated mic on my webcam won't work, or that all the fancy features on my wireless mouse and keyboard are not supported by the driver.

Again, it's not that you can't get any single one of the peripherals above to work with your chosen flavor of Linux, if you try hard enough (maybe). It's the fact that I *know* that any current or future peripheral (with all its features) will be immediately supported by Windows. There's no such guarantee for Linux.

You're certainly free to resell the book. But depending on the license for the software code in the book, you may not be free to type that code and use it any way you want.

The problem is that [censored] matters. For example, if [censored] = movie DVD, even though you own the movie DVD, you do NOT have the right to stick it in a DVD player and display the movie in a public place. You certainly can't sell tickets to that movie. But if [censored] = bread, you're free to display that loaf, even sell sandwiches you made with it.

What if you never walk into a store and never buy something off the shelf, but you download the software instead? What if they make you click the EULA before you download the software. Would it be more legitimate to claim you're only buying a license in this case?

I don't think it's at all obvious whether you're buying the software or buying a license to use it.

Or a laptop with HDMI out capable of 1080p. Pricier, but more attractive than most nettops and also doubles as a laptop :)