Most economic models of equilibrium explicitly state that they model outcomes “in the long run” for precisely this type of a circumstance.
Should a firm with a history of these types of problems lose out to competition organically? Sure, but there is no binary “losing out tot he competition” switch that just gets flipped one day.
This is part of the reason why I get so frustrated with the laissez faire mindset/meme.
Crucially, these models don't actually state that the companies that do the best job will win out, but that the most profitable ones do.
The problem arises when screwing over the user is more profitable than doing it properly.
That's why the tech industry is so ethically corrupt today. There's very little regulation to make dark patterns and sloppy security practices more costly than they are profitable.
Duopoly. Plus cost of switching away once you sign up.
Network effects and monopolistic (anti-competitive) features allow bad companies to survive today. Monopolistic practices are probably a worse problem today than in the 1920s.
In the 1920s governments used regulation to break up huge firms and defeat advantages due to cost of capital (hard to start a new railroad in the 20s because the cost of trains and tracks was just so high.) Today, cost of capital is relatively less important, and things like switching cost and bundling and people valuing their time and convenience are bigger factors. We need anti-trust/government regulation to address those.
(For example, in the case of password managers, imagine if there were laws requiring publicized security audits and seamless migration to a new service of customer's choice. A competitor to Lastpass might have arrived by now.
All major browsers offer password management, then there's Apple Keychain, 1Password, KeePass, Bitwarden, and Lastpass. And that's just the ones I could think about while reading your comment.
Where is the the duopoly, and who's being forced out of the marketplace due to lack of government regulation of password managers?
Much of this could be addressed by antitrust enforcement as well as actually having competent lawmakers that understand the products their citizens use overwhelmingly daily. Policymakers barely understand the internet, let alone zero knowledge architecture and encryption
Sundar Pichai being asked about if someone is handpicking search results comes to mind, as an illustration
And yet here we are.