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0 pointsRetric1d ago0 comments

> in a competitive marketplace … current situation.

Lots of words to say you don’t understand what you’re talking about.

At the most simple level monopolies extract profits through raising prices above that of a competitive market. This price increase reduces total sales even as it drives up profits.

As such the existence or non existence of a monopoly would change how much energy/etc AI was consuming among a host of other effects completely independent of how much utility it provided.

> nobody is analyzing the future here

That’s genuinely funny.

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fsckboy15h ago

again, nothing that you are talking about has anything to do with the conversation I initiated. (IBM used to be a monopoly, now they're not. How much power did they do they use? we don't need economics, we just look at their power bill, it's that much, that's the impact they have on the power grid.)

if you want to sound like you know what you are talking about, don't talk about "total sales", you want to talk about quantity demanded at the market clearing price vs the monopoly price, and the effect that has on producer surplus.

and what is bad about a monopoly in economic terms is not that they extract a higher price and profit from their smaller number of customers (those customer choose to purchase the product because it's worth it to them), it's the dead weight loss which represents unmet demand which slows the economy overall

RetricOP6h ago

> we just look at their power bill

We can’t look at next year’s power bill today. Hell finding their power bills from 1930 isn’t trivial either, thus we model the universe and test those models rather than just making up nonsense models that look pretty.

> that's the impact they have on the power grid.

That’s only the direct effect, the indirect effects get way more complicated.

The fact you’re constantly demonstrating profound ignorance is why I am treating you like a 5 year old. You understood what I said and had no defense, thus my use of simple terms was entirely justified. Using more words to say exactly what I just said doesn’t change my opinion. Instead try and apply that line of reasoning to your earlier statements and find the issue, that would demonstrate some actual understanding.

PS: The economic harm from monopolies extends to R&D etc but …

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