the.com/oligopoly
a club so exclusive its members compete only on who blinks first.
means A market dominated by a small handful of sellers, each so aware of the others that every move is a calculated stare-down.
from From Greek 'oligos' (few) plus 'polein' (to sell) — the same '-poly' you hear in 'monopoly,' where 'monos' means alone. So a monopoly is one seller, an oligopoly the few. The word is a modern coinage, built deliberately from those classical parts by economists wanting a name for the space between one seller and many.
- magic number
- few enough firms to read each other's minds
- price dance
- nobody cuts prices, everybody watches everybody
- game theory home
- the prisoner's dilemma's natural habitat
- real examples
- airlines, telecom, soda, cereal aisles
- silent deals
- collusion needs no meeting, just mutual restraint
big three us automakers — gm, ford, stellantis controlled ~45% of us market share in 2023
big four tech platforms — apple, google, microsoft, amazon dominate cloud, search, os, and e-commerce globally
duopoly in commercial aircraft — boeing and airbus share 99% of large commercial jet market