fraidykluofficer.com
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You still seem to be missing the key point: if you want to claim that industries tend toward concentration in general, citing particular concentrated industries isn't going to cut it.
Well... I gave you some examples in trillion-dollar industries and asked for counter-examples.
Many of your counter-examples -- car dealerships, spas, hair salons, etc -- are niche markets.
Few of them were multi-billion industries, and they provide more examples of consolidation.
Just google for "consolidation in restaurant industry" and you will find articles like "6 reasons for restaurants' massive consolidation wave", "Deals and consolidation dominate restaurant industry".
How about the small restaurants? According to "Food Delivery Consolidation: Good For Now, But Not For Long", platforms such as... (read more)
Electronics isn't.
Isn't it? Think of a subcategory.
I could go on and on.
Retail has a long tail.
Retail is a prime example of consolidation -- think of Walmart,
Sales by the 20 largest food retailers totaled $515.3 billion in 2016, accounting for 66.6 percent of U.S. grocery store sales, up from 42.2 percent in 1996. Amazon acquired Whole Foods in the summer of 2017. (Source)
Fast forward to 2020, "Amazon and Walmart are like two elephants wrestling, and all the other retailers in the U.S. are the grass" (Source).
... (read more)Telecoms is concentrated, though it's become less
Of course there have been particular cases where an industry consolidated during a particular period.
That period being... any moment in time.
You made a much stronger claim: that industries in general tend toward consolidation. Pointing to two or three examples where industries consolidated does not provide much evidence for such a claim.
I didn't point to "two or three examples", but eleven business sectors dominated by huge conglomerates.
On the other hand, pointing to examples where industries did not consolidate provides significant evidence against such a claim.
You responded with a single sector: services.
Even then, I gave a counter-example showing how big companies can drive small companies away.
And you see that happening all the time: Starbucks, McDonalds, etc.
The consolidation is a process, it didn't finish yet.
Restaurants, car dealerships, spas and hair salons, construction, plumbers and electricians, doctors and lawyers.
What you are saying is that services can be provided by small companies.
Fair enough.
But we still can see consolidation there.
Starbucks uses a tactic known as ‘clustering’. They’ll build several cafes right in the same area to obliterate competition. This costs a lot of money, but they can afford it... They even use a strategy called ‘predatory real estate’. They pay more than market rate rents to keep competitors out of a location.
... (read more)Even in some of the sectors you list - like automotive manufacturing - we haven't seen much net consolidation. We haven't seen a lot of new entrants, but's
There are many industries where companies do not tend to consolidate
Can you give me a few examples? I'll list a few important industries:
In each one of these, you'll find a bunch of big players.
For example:
Even if you consider new entrants (such as Tesla) we are still talking about a few companies that dominate the industry.
Can you list any important sector where we don't see consolidation?
By ‘lockdown’ we refer to the thing that the US, UK and China have been doing, and what Sweden didn’t.
You should also mention that the approach in the US is not uniform.
Although many states had blanket lockdowns, some were a patchwork of rules, with cities and counties mandating their own restrictions.
Also, a hard lockdown demonstrated to be very useful to flatten the curve in New York.
The average number of life expectancy years lost for a death by COVID is estimated to be ~10 years so 50k COVID deaths ~= 500k QALYs lost.
Where did this number come from?
The life expectancy of a 65 years old man is 19 years.
Source: Life Expectancy Calculator
Now, you must consider that Peru managed to reduce their death rate to ~0.1% with a lockdown. The situation is terrible but it could have been worse -- if they didn't act.
So: your analysis is minimizing the cost of a death and failing to take into account the reduction in the number of deaths thanks to the lockdown.
Have the lockdowns been worth it?
Are you serious?
Just remember what happened to Italy -- or New York -- before they implemented the lockdown.
People were dying like flies, they had to park trucks to collect bodies from hospitals.
The answer is a resounding yes.
What we see in reality is that companies tend to consolidate into bigger and bigger conglomerates.
It's easy to see why.
As small companies compete, you naturally get market leaders. As these companies get larger they become more efficient at producing goods and services. They invest in mass production techniques in order to produce goods more cheaply than their competitors. They buy raw materials at cheaper prices because they buy in bulk. They expand specialization amongst their workforce. The bigger they get, the easier it is to make money.
When two market leaders merge they achieve massive economies of scale. This forces others to merge in order to compete, leading to ever greater concentration. Monopolies often buy their rivals.
It's not a matter of being "evil", it's just a natural outcome of capitalism. If they don't, a competitors will.
What does that mean?