Good point Bruce!
I would only add that in this case also the Flarm's users should care. First of all in Europe there are gliders flying with DSX. As of today Flarms can only see Flarms. So they buy an anti-collision system and they may collide with another glider only because the encryption.... Crazy isn't it?

Second, in a condition of monopoly, the incumbent may decide the commercial policy he likes the most. And this, believe me, will not be in favor of the users


On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:19:37 PM UTC+2, Bruce Hoult wrote:
On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:00:10 AM UTC+3, Nick wrote:
Why does Ebay have a monopoly when anyone could build a site and undercut them?

It's because the market for auctions is winner takes all. As a buyer you don't care which site you go to, you are just after the cheapest price.

As a seller you can only use one site per item, and you go to the one with the biggest number of users and hence the greatest number of people trying to buy. The listing costs in most cases are dwarfed by the money you make from the competition.

So with flarm, its a case that people are going to go with one system, and that's going to be determined by the number of users, or its mandated by law.

Ebay is a good example. In New Zealand they got their arses kicked by local site TradeMe.

Or Starbucks. Why is Starbucks a virtual monopoly in the USA? They also got their arses kicked in both New Zealand and Australia, where they couldn't compete with local boutique cafes (not even another chain) and have closed something like 80% of their stores.