^^^

  • Kissaki@beehaw.org
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    22 hours ago

    poly means many

    so if both mono and poly are in monopoly, why do you only pick mono, or why does only mono matter here?

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      18 hours ago

      The word for a market dominated by only a few very large players is oligopoly, not… polyopoly.

      Not saying you’re saying that, just saying.

      As to the etymology…

      Its derives from Greek.

      A monopoly has one (mono) influential seller for many (poly) consumers.

      An oligopoly has a few, wealthy (oligo, as in oligarch, oligarchy) sellers for many (poly) consumers.

      Importantly, in Greek, poly is closely related to polis, meaning basically ‘all of the people/citizens’.

      This is also where English gets ‘Politics’ from.

      Also, I wrote a whole other comment, but the mere existence of any competitors, no matter how small… doesn’t mean you aren’t a monopoly.

      Its just means you aren’t a perfect monopoly, which basically never exists in real life, outside of public utilities.

      If the rubric for ‘is it a monopoly?’ was ‘do any competitors exist?’, then basically no company that’s ever been broken up or regulated for being a monopoly was actually a monopoly.

    • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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      21 hours ago

      Because that’s the way i decided to dumb it down. Apparently it wasn’t dumbed down enough.