search engines don't charge, so price dumping is not an issue. The only thing keeping them from being a monopoly is the fact that there are reasonable competitors and it is relatively easy to switch to a new search engine, and there are few drawbacks to doing so. There are nearly a monopoly, but there are a few reasons why anti-competition doesn't necessarily apply to them. that being said, until reasonable competitors DID start cropping up, they absolutely WERE a monopoly. Until Bing came out, they were the only real choice and dominated the entire search engine industry.

I do consider Microsoft a monopoly in the consumer operating system space, because nobody can reasonably compete against them. Who are you going to switch to? The only reasonable alternative for the average consumer is Apple which costs thousands of dollars, and also only has a 16% usage share vs Microsoft's 76%. That is extremely uneven and we have seen the detriments to Microsoft's market dominance already. If you have spent any time on the internet, you will realize that Windows 11 is very unpopular for a variety of reasons...for most people its the only choice they have to upgrade, and when support for Windows 10 drops there only choice will be either 11 or 12. If 12 has just as many issues as 11, they will have no choice but to just deal with it. It is a stagnant industry that once was vibrant with many competitors. The only reason Microsoft has market dominance now is because they committed anticompetitive practices in the 90s to shut down all competition. Both in the web browser industry, and in the Operating systems industry. By the time regulation came for their head, all reasonable competitors were already out of business.

The only cost-effective alternative is Linux. And don't get me wrong, I love Linux. However it is an unreasonable switch as it requires knowledge of the PC you are using, and the ability to install an OS yourself. Most people can't do that. After that, we have to assume that people know how to get their drivers working, and the slew of other issues. Its a common meme in the Linux space that "The Year of the Linux Desktop" will never come. It is also not sold with actual hardware outside of a few niche vendors that have no brick and mortar presence. Those vendors pander exclusively towards hobbyists because they know that grandma will just be confused, and mom and pop will balk at the price.

So yes, I consider Windows a monopoly. When people don't like the changes, their only choice is mostly to either deal with it, pay thousands of dollars for their competitor, or learn to be a tech geek and install a system that might not even work for their system. They need a serious affordable competitor, and that likely won't happen until either the inevitable antitrust lawsuit splits the company(this almost happened in 2002 but the judge was replaced with a Microsoft sympathizer that helped them maintain their monopoly.) happens or someone comes up with a reasonable competitor that can SOMEHOW compete with Microsoft. How they would do that, I don't know.

Now...as far as you go. Am I correct in believing that you think total market dominance is a GOOD thing? That a single vendor that controls the direction of the entire industry will ACTUALLY serve the best interests for the consumer? Like I said with Microsoft, that is not really the case. Microsoft doesn't actually give a damn what the public thinks, because people will have to upgrade anyway. They do insane privacy-invading telemetry because while people will complain, they also know that nobody can switch outside of people who are already technical or rich enough to buy Apple.

As far as me checking your comment history, yes. I check people's comment history to get a judgement of their character. It is extremely often I deal with shills, or someone who doesn't engage in honest discussion for whatever reason, or trolls. Considering the fact that you almost exclusively try to debate with people on monopolies regarding e-readers, I am starting to think that you have a vested interest in market dominance, either in the e-ink industry or the e-reader industry. Am I correct in that assumption?

Market share: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

Microsoft's anticompetitive practices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation#Antitrust

Microsoft's telemetry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT4vDfA_4NI