>> Do you think there is any such thing as a natural monopoly?

> I am not aware of any.

I think, judging by your username (ancap), you are philosophically opposed to the concept, because the existence of natural monopolies would represent a failure of the pure free market capitalism you promote.

I doubt I will convince you, and I doubt anyone else here needs to be convinced that natural monopolies exist.

>> Do you think the cost inherent in laying cables makes the entity that owns the cables a natural monopoly?

> No, otherwise the "natural monopoly" existed before the first company ever laid cables.

This simply does not make sense, which is further evidence that you're opposed to the concept. The high fixed costs of the laying of the cables relative to the small marginal cost of adding a new subscriber once cables have been laid is what creates a natural monopoly in this context. The massive economies of scale which are only available to the company which already has the cables laid make it infeasible for a new company to lay its own cables; that's how a natural monopoly is enforced.

Therefore, it's nonsense to imagine the monopoly existed before the cable was laid.

>I doubt I will convince you, and I doubt anyone else here needs to be convinced that natural monopolies exist.

You won't even try to provide an example? Perhaps it is not I who is "philosophically opposed to the concept".

>This simply does not make sense, which is further evidence that you're opposed to the concept. The high fixed costs of the laying of the cables relative to the small marginal cost of adding a new subscriber once cables have been laid is what creates a natural monopoly in this context. The massive economies of scale which are only available to the company which already has the cables laid make it infeasible for a new company to lay its own cables; that's how a natural monopoly is enforced.

You asked whether the cost of laying cables makes a company a monopoly. The question itself demonstrates "nonsense". If the cost of laying cables is an inhibiting factor for the first company, then it is also the inhibiting factor for any companies which follow. The cost of adding new subscribers is irrelevant. If the first company is not meeting the demands of the customer then the conditions are ripe for a competitor.

>You won't even try to provide an example?

Well since we don't actually live in an anarcho-capitalist "utopia", governments tend to intervene sooner or later in dysfunctional markets. And I find that regardless of how bad things were beforehand, or how light the resulting regulation, the response from AnCaps is always "You touched it, you bought it!"

Nonetheless, the history of Standard Oil is a pretty compelling example of a natural monopoly.

>If the cost of laying cables is an inhibiting factor for the first company, then it is also the inhibiting factor for any companies which follow.

The difference is the potential ROI for each market entrant.

For the first company, the entry cost may be high, but since there'll be no competition, there's potential for decent profits.

The second company faces the same entry cost, but they also have to compete with the first company, so their potential profits are much lower.

As a result, those who might disrupt the market are much more likely to invest elsewhere.

>And I find that regardless of how bad things were beforehand, or how light the resulting regulation, the response from AnCaps is always "You touched it, you bought it!"

I'm not even sure what that means.

>Nonetheless, the history of Standard Oil is a pretty compelling example of a natural monopoly.

I'd wager that what you think you know about Standard Oil is probably mythical and not based on historical fact.

>For the first company, the entry cost may be high, but since there'll be no competition, there's potential for decent profits. >The second company faces the same entry cost, but they also have to compete with the first company, so their potential profits are much lower.

And yet I know of cities which have half a dozen ISPs (none of them publicly owned). As I said previously if the existing company/ies are not satisfying customers, then there is room for competition. The second [or third, or fourth...] need not even compete on the same scale as the existing ISP[s]. A local entrepreneur seeing the need, could just wire up his neighborhood. I know of cases where this has happened.