bigfatcarp93 said:
Isn't a monopoly illegal in America? Forgive my ignorance if it's not...
They are in certain cases. Natural monopolies are perefectly legal but strictly enforced (mostly utilities fall into this category, with the biggest example being water and plumbing). other monopolies can arise just because they keep enough competition around. most all industries of note have the typical BIG players (the big 6 film studies, the big 3 in gaming, the big computer manufacturing companies, etc) that do all the major decisions while the small "independents" are more or less left to rot and voice their opinions to no one. as long as they dont all get together and say, "hey, lets all agree to just charge 5000 dollars and buy out anyone smaller who disagrees or crush any of us that defect, because seriously, fuck the public what are teh going to do about it" the gov doesnt usually care when you have a main group.
of course thats also cause of political donations so yeah.
hell, even Apple was talked about having a lawsuit for monopolies with its iTunes thing because in the beginning (Im not an apple fan so i dont know if its still like this since I dont use apple products), the way the data was kept you couldnt use it on any non apple MP3 player, so it forced you to buy your product and only your product and because there wasnt many legal options outside of iTunes it was more or less a monopoly.
Funny Anecdote: I almost have a full monopoly with my friend, but he owns one of the first two really light blue squares but government subsidies are stopping me from destroying him, plus he keeps investing well and fighting me off with his capital gains. But I have him cornered into the island of madagascar and am starving him down. once that falls I'll just use my powers as world emperor to shut his ass down and dominate.