I have seen this allegation raised often whenever a large corporation buys out a smaller one. For instance, take Electronic Arts (EA) and the lengthy lists of video game studios they have bought the rights to, then shut down. To a lot of people, this is an example of how big monopolies in capitalism…

First, you must prove that companies like EA are not limiting the choices of consumers through these practices.

I don’t think those complaining about Electronic Farts buying out their competitors are aware of how many patents they hold. The state has really helped build them up to the point where they’re able to do this. It’s the same thing with Ubi Soft. They receive so much in subsidies from the French gov…

Firstly there are obviously many anti-free market barriers to entry. It must be understood that the market is extremely hampered everywhere across the globe (some places more than others) and to simply blame things on the free market makes little sense, since the free market is not allowed to exist. …

@OP Have you heard of Valve and Steam? Valve thrives on publishing other companies products, and most of those other companies are actually small indie companies. Even if EA is trying to buyout and close the competition, Valve is there to counteract this and make a profit.

@ gotlucky: I think people would then say something like: What’s to stop EA from buying out Valve? something else implying that in the future there will only be EA and companies they hate that own everything

Intellectual property issues aside, the sellers now have money to start another business to serve customers. The classic example are the oil refiners that would sell out to Standrad Oil then use the money to start another refinery and then sell out to Standard Oil again. During the process, the oil…

Valve’s a privately held company. It can’t simply be bought, not by hostile takeover anyway.

I’ll refer you to part i and ii of this Robert LeFevre talk on the fears of monopoly, which as he says, is actually the fear of high prices: http://mises.org/media/1158/The-Fear-of-Monopoly-Part-One http://mises.org/media/1159/The-Fear-of-Monopoly-Part-Two

@Cortes Why would Gabe Newell sell Valve to EA? A large part of Valve’s revenue comes from publishing indie games. Newell is estimated to be worth $1.5 billion. Why would he sell Valve with the kind of revenue it pulls in is nearly $1 billion ? And I’m not even sure the decision is entirely up to Ne…

The whole argument is irrelevant. The decrease in quality/quantity of games, so long as these games are demanded, means that there’s a greater incentive for new studios to open up. This is especially true since there’s now all of the old game developers who are now out of a job and can be gobbled up…

Fears of monopolies 'buying out their competition' and restricting consumer choice.

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John_James June 11, 2012, 2:15am 12

Monopoly & Predatory pricing (aka “commodity hoarding”) (the Microsoft case)

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Fears of monopolies 'buying out their competition' and restricting consumer choice.

Monopoly & Predatory pricing (aka “commodity hoarding”) (the Microsoft case)

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