Learn English – Need a word for a near-monopoly

single-word-requests

My motivation for the question is: prior to the Age of the Web most product and service categories had several more-or-less-equal competitors: if you wanted to fly from NYC to LA there were several major airlines to choose from. Buying (or renting) a car presented a bunch of options, as did fast food restaurants, insurance companies, cameras, TV's refrigerators and other white goods, hotels, and almost everything else. It was rare for a company to sustain more than 50% market share.

But nowadays there are a whole bunch of product or service categories where there's one 900 pound gorilla and whoever is number two is way back in the dust somewhere. Google has 79.88% of all searches (Statcounter, August 2016) Amazon dominates online retail – I have no idea who #2 is. YouTube dominates video sharing; Facebook dominates social media with 1.2 billion daily active users. Windows dominates desktop operating systems, etc etc. And IDC reported this week that Android is now 85% of smartphones. Even in arcane categories like software development forums, there's StackOverflow and then who's number 2?

So what's a good, recognizable word for that kind of dominance, where one entity totally dominates its category, but is not technically a monopoly? Facebook, Android, Google, Windows, all have competition but whoever is number 2 is way back in the dust.

Best Answer

The term near-monopoly is correct and can be used to describe the companies with dominant market positions:

  • The monopolies or near-monopolies we usually think of tend to be technology giants like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, which holds more than 60% of the search engine market Netflix has been accused of coming close to monopolizing the online video market. Other more commonly hated companies like Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Verizon, and Comcast are also frequent targets, although consumers can give the FCC some props for its role in blocking Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner.

(www.cheatsheet.com)

Also:

The companies you cite have dominant positions in the contexts they operate and are defined as natural monopoly:

  • A natural monopoly is a type of monopoly that exists as a result of the high fixed costs or startup costs of operating a business in a specific industry. Additionally, natural monopolies can arise in industries that require unique raw materials, technology or other similar factors to operate.

  • Since it is economically sensible to have some monopolies like these, governments allow them to exist but provide regulation, ensuring consumers get a fair deal.

(www.investopedia.com)

Microsoft has a simple strategy for earning great profits. The software business is a natural monopoly business because average total costs continually decline with increased output.

(Thismatter.com)

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