anonymous question

This question is so common that when a memo for arguing with schoolchildren was being compiled, it was listed as number one.

Indeed, antitrust services are not needed. Monopolies are either formed where the optimal business size turns out to be comparable to the total market size, or where government regulations have created the monopoly artificially (for example, through licensing of activities, exclusive procurement from a single supplier, issuance of patents — in other words, by prohibiting anyone but the monopolist from entering the market).

In the first case, the monopolist successfully meets the demand, the market grows, and over time it turns out that there is now room for several more companies; any attempt by the monopolist to fight them using market methods leads to such a loss of profit that it becomes more profitable for the monopolist to invest in other industries rather than cling to a market share where they are still a monopolist.

In the second case, the monopolist becomes arrogant, raising prices and degrading the quality of services, while the state has to deal with consumer dissatisfaction. Sooner or later, either lobbyists for potential competitors will push through the deregulation of the industry (this is how Novatek secured the right to export liquefied natural gas, which previously belonged exclusively to Gazprom), or a black market will develop, which, without doing anything about the de jure monopoly, will undermine its de facto monopoly. Despairing of fighting the black market through state power, the monopolist will be forced to make concessions — and finally start lowering prices and improving quality.