Brokers 2 and 3 now proceed to raise their prices independently with no interference from one another, eventually reaching prices that are near-optimal for niche monopolists. The color scheme has been changed to reveal the frequent switching among niches. Each broker's price curve is colored to reflect its niche at each moment. Figure 9 shows a close-up of a somewhat different price war that starts near time 1750. At first, brokers 1 and 3 vie for category 1, leaving category 3 uncovered.
Prices continue to drop.
At time 1878, broker 3 finds that it can drop its competition with broker 1 by dropping category 3, leaving it a specialist in category 1. A quantitative analysis of this apparent coupling would be valuable, and is probably feasible. After some further switches in broker 1's niche, brokers 1 and 2 eventually specialize in categories 2 and 3 respectively, their prices drift up towards the monopolistic optimal point, and the brokers are once again in specialized niches. 6 and 10 . During the metastable regimes, each broker has a single-category monopoly.