> But make no mistake, they're just as fragile as every other Standard Oil that's ever existed.
It's ironic that you chose Standard Oil as an example. It was an unbeatable monopoly that was broken up by govt regulation, not by competition. You're arguing against your own position.
> Pay for an email service, and sue if you incur damages due to them terminating your service.
You always sign away this right when using a commercial email service. Their terms of use allow them to terminate your account with impunity.
> Or run your own email server if you care to.
This is a very 1990s understanding of the email ecosystem. It's almost impossible to start a new email service today because the big players (primarily Google and Microsoft) won't trust you and will silently refuse to deliver your emails. Sometimes you will be blanket banned, sometimes you'll just have a few missing here or there.
Because the email market is dominated by so few players, they have complete control over the ecosystem. Even if you choose your email service, your recipients will have chosen one of the big players 99.999% of the time, meaning you're also playing by their rules.
It's ironic that you chose Standard Oil as an example. It was an unbeatable monopoly that was broken up by govt regulation, not by competition. You're arguing against your own position.
> Pay for an email service, and sue if you incur damages due to them terminating your service.
You always sign away this right when using a commercial email service. Their terms of use allow them to terminate your account with impunity.
> Or run your own email server if you care to.
This is a very 1990s understanding of the email ecosystem. It's almost impossible to start a new email service today because the big players (primarily Google and Microsoft) won't trust you and will silently refuse to deliver your emails. Sometimes you will be blanket banned, sometimes you'll just have a few missing here or there.
Because the email market is dominated by so few players, they have complete control over the ecosystem. Even if you choose your email service, your recipients will have chosen one of the big players 99.999% of the time, meaning you're also playing by their rules.